Saturday, September 4, 2010

Bird's eye view

A young bird takes her first flight.
With every eye -span ,
she learns new things and grows bold.
Then she starts questioning the old....


Flying above I look down and see -
Grey buildings and brown land.
Every inch, an human errand.
The water shining black and blue
Smoke rings which block my view.

Massive dams that make river stop
Flying planes that come to me for talk
Mighty machine uprooting the tree
Opening up place for walking free.

A big drill to break open the earth
And pull out oil even from inside the crust.
Power weapons to tame elephants life
Ivory to jewel converting magic knife
Even the mighty whale cannot freely float
A magic machine can convert them to soap.

So much magic in the world below lies
New things I learn with each span of eye
But each eye-span chills my heart like ice
To realize that all my grandmother stories were lies --

“Blue water and green land” she told
“Elephant the mightiest animal” she behold
“River always flows to meet the sea” told she
“Only birds can reach the tallest tree.”

May be she never flew out of the nest,
May be she told all stories just in jest,
But when I return home to the flock
My grandmother I will delight with my talks.
I will tell her about the real World Rules
About man, machine and all the tools.
I know truth will give her delight
I know she will kiss me with pride.

But before I fly back home round
Why not eat the grains on the ground.
It is nice to chew these grains you bet,
But why are my feet tangled in a net?

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