The Bowl

By Vijay Kumar

You can’t miss the head, 

As that’s almost all you can see

The man squats on the sidewalk, 

His elbows on knees

His hands together, 

Hold his lowered head

Try to meet his eyes, 

He looks down instead 

His shrunken frame too small, 

To see much else

May have been ages, 

Since he saw himself

It seems that he was, 

Too far gone to care       

He didn’t know, 

They watched him with scare 

His cheeks sunken, 

His eyes like ghouls

He seemed to be from, 

The world of lost souls

The ones we see always, 

Yet don’t ever

The Ones who’ve long lost, 

Their tether     

No family, no kin 

No yearning within 

Much a part of this sidewalk is he

Seems to everyone, 

That’s where he was meant to be 

He sits with a bowl by his side

He shoots glances at it, sheepishly,

As if a bride, for that his only love 

The bowl, with many a dent 

Has few coins, usually cents 

The bowl is his love, master, his saviour, his friend 

They’ve been together, for years on end

The bowl, is picked, 

Gently knocked on the ground

Drawing the attention of passersby around

The jangle of coins, 

Add to the thrill

Of waiting to see, 

If it touches a will

The will of a passerby, 

To part with a cent or two

That happens rarely, as all eschew

To notice the passersby, 

Who’ve already passed him so

As the bowl tries feebly, 

For the passersby to know 

He is so tiny, 

So low in every sense

Almost too far down, 

To be spared a pence

He matters not, yet is

To remind us that life can be like his 

Shush, his bowl he knocks

Now, throw him a dime! 

If you do, survive he may

Else, he’ll be gone in a snap, some day

His going, no ones’ loss

After all his worths’, only cents’ toss

No one to pray for his soul  

All that remains, will be his bowl 

Besides, the sidewalk’d be spared

Before, yet another shrunken man’d take his place 

Come another discard, another forgetten    

He too will need a friend, 

Grieve not thee O’forgotten 

The dead has left for you

A friend in his chattel   

…. his bowl …..his bowl

By Vijay Kumar