Marooned Lives

I saw my home crumble down

A lifetime's savings washed away and drowned

I stood by my car, I loved it galore

Both got swept away untracked

I never found my way back into life

I had a friend of mine

My happy days with whom I spent

In the waters I lost him, my school mate,

By the bloody and cruel hands of fate.

I had a son, my only one,

Who was caught in debris and rubble

Now saved from many more troubles

For he came out still

And I wonder why I survive still?

I remember walking many times to the temple

My faith never left me and kept me humble

But now I shudder and tremble

To see the torrent of water assemble

And drown God's own holy place

Under the roof, it consumed all the space.

I saw the familiar roads once I travelled

Corroding like a piece of cake,

Disappear and levelled

By strong fiery waves, shuffled.

In its strident fury, quite unruffled!

I saw, where it was once a happy playground

Only a river overflows and floods beyond.

Now I travel by boat not bus

I don't complain or make any fuss.

Happy that I am, not being in the statistics

In the death tolls that like time bomb ticks

Nature's old tricks!

Where once I saw stray animals roam free

I wonder if they are not caught in the spree

And are in some safe place I think

And not washed out away with the play-things.

As one of the surviving crowd

I look up at the sky

And see the dark swelling clouds floating by

And I ardently pray for the sun to shine

Keeping my hopes high

Yet with a grim sigh!