The Despondent Desert

Days come, days pass

But everything on my lone sands 

Remains stagnant, wide and vast

 

“Oh my dearest desert,”

My friend, the setting sun asked me

“What has caused you this sorrow

That I see your tears shining blazingly ?” 

To him then I started telling

About my perpetual despondency

 

With bleak trees adorning my sands

Bearing neither fruits nor flowers, in hand

I am nothing as compared 

To my lush green friends in the rainy land

 

Even I am so monotonous and monochrome

Exuding silent stillness wherever the eyes stretch

I am nothing as compared to my friend, the seashore

Where the mighty sea waves kiss the tranquil land

 

Even the Man is tired and frustrated

Of trying to grow anything on my barren land

Look at my friends, the fertile valleys

Where everything grows, so winsome and grand

 

I have felt so bad, my dear friend

When Man has cursed me for the scorching heat

Even the Rain God has no mercy

Hardly ever a drop of water kisses me

 

“Don’t cry, my dear friend

You may not be grand like the mountains

Neither green like the forests

Nor gusty like the sea waves

But you are golden sand

Where the footprints of time

Leave an indelible imprint of the Man”

 

“You are a home to so many creatures

Who wouldn’t have survived without you

You are an amber beauty-

And Men from all over the world come to see you”

 

“On a full moon night, dear desert

You see the blue heaven stretched infinite

With the star studded diamonds smiling at you

Whose beauty can be realized 

only on your serene sands”

 

I pondered deeply on this

As my friend got vanished in my vast sands

And smiled as my tears dried

Oh what a fool I was !

Just like the Man

 

I was neither better nor worse

Than anyone on this heavenly earth

Just different- just a beautiful me

Like the lily and the rose

 

And as the night grew darker

I looked up towards the moon’s spotted face

Which shone with a resplendent light

“We shine even with our flaws

And that’s the paradox of life”