Retreat

By Silpi Sikha Das

Part one:

I see him everyday,

On our ways home.

Home, not firm shelter.

I heard he lives in a shabby shack,

Beside the railway station,

Does jobs his age fails to justify.

On my way home, I watch him from the bus.

He walks by the banks of the river,

Our velocities almost the same.

The pompous five p.m sunset,

When birds retreat, head home.

He never looks at the sky,

The playful crimson strokes,

Plays on his background but

Doesn't bother the child, he walks...

Carrying fragments of his day,

On his hunched back.

He is ten and he works.

Picks rags, begs, has a cult.

Like gangs, they rule the footpaths.

A swarm of identical kids,

Soiled, scantily clothed,

Stubborn and starving.

Part two:

At the end of the day,

We all retreat; you, I, him.

We trace our ways home,

But him, he goes someplace,

You and I forbid our children from.

Some world darker than

The reality we perceive.

The kid, he thrives there,

Some red pit of hell,

He survives there.

I see him everyday,

On my way home.

I know where he retreats to.

The darkness that has

Contaminated his dreams, if any;

If he dares any.

It's more than I fathom.

And I know where he goes.

I, you, even though we are blind,

Like mannequins by the footpath,

We see what he does.

Part three:

I watch him everyday.

Skinny and strong, he walks,

Miles to an absolute stop;

Some black hole that eats his dreams

And engulfs his future.

But the kid, he walks,

Carrying fragments of his day,

On his hunched back,

He walks...

To wherever the road leads,

For he lives everyday,

And struggles every minute.

Unaware of the matrix,

That has consumed,

His childhood, he walks...

For all he knows is to live.

All he learns is to not give up.

And at the end of the day,

He retreats, comes home,

To the dots of hope he sees,

On the sky under which he sleeps...

By Silpi Sikha Das