The Bowl
Updated: Feb 5, 2024
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
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