Stars

When the orphan was five, he was told that his parents had become stars in the sky,

And he spent his nights sleepless,

Wondering if their killer too had become a star,

After he was hung?

When at fifteen he was thrown out of the orphanage,

And slept on streets, hungry and beaten upon,

He wondered if humanity too had become a star,

Dead and long gone,

But it didn't seem to shine its lights from the sky,

As the earth sure seemed to be a dark place.

When at twenty, he drove a birthing woman to a hospital,

He was awestruck to see the lights of the ambulance shining brighter than other stars.

When at thirty, he switched on the first light bulb in a house of the village which hadn't seen electricity,

He had no answer to give to the children, 

Who asked him if the light bulb was really a small piece of a star from the sky.

At forty, he finally found solace, not in the gazing at the stars,

But in the twinkle, in the eyes of the baby orphan girl he decided to adopt.

Finally, at seventy-five, as his eyes gleamed and glistened,

The orphan finally understood,

That not all of the dead shine as the stars,

Some as shine as torches in rescue operations,

As signboards of hospitals,

As lights of hope from candles and lamps in peaceful temples,

While others continue to live on in the eyes of those who make the world not so a dark a place for someone else,

And maybe his parents were the twinkle in his two eyes who lived all along,

And now it was time for him to do the same.