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“I read the news today… oh boy!”

 

I read the news today… oh boy!”
 
 Just for the tiniest of seconds
 
The sky he spied
 
He thought it was blue
 
The mesh with pigeon drooping
 
Blurred with grey turned black
 
Yielded little that was true
 
 
That glance was all he could afford
 
Though his heart ached for more
 
Any longer and he knew for sure
 
The heavy hand of Retribution would follow
 
Sometimes stinging sometime flinging
 
A body many times broken only to endure
 
 
So he hunched over his little orb
 
Needle in hand not yet ten
 
Puncturing and pulling thread
 
Through fabric shimmering bright
 
Tracing designs made for angels fair
 
Through fourteen hours for some water and bread
 
 
 
 
That little bit of blue sky
 
Secretly stolen under the demon’s eye
 
Brought a lump to the boy’s throat
 
And a tear to his eyes that he dared not shed
 
Remembering the sights and sounds of his village grounds
 
As he grazed the ever hungry goat
 
 
 
He was hungry here he was hungry there
 
Without a mother and father to call his own
 
Only a granny who for money gave him away
 
Happiness he knew nothing of only gnawing fear
 
Knowing well that if his fingers didn’t work fast enough
 
Like the boy that died he too from the fan would sway
 
  
He spied the blue sky again
 
This time he didn’t glance away
 
There were kind smiling faces and gentle hands
 
Though the bench he sat on was cold and hard
 
All would be well he would never have to go back they said
 
Not knowing how to smile he looked at his hands still full of fabric strands
 
 
© jyotikumarsarma
    19042011