What Is This Life?

By Sameerah Nisha Sultana

With pensive mind I see the peasants returning…

Grimy shirt, exhausted body, a face with melancholy yearning.

Moon-in-between, the clouds glowing…

Red wine they are drinking,

To forget their hard toil and sorrow,

Can they imagine what life would bring tomorrow?

Every day the same old thing,

No doubt they are human being,

The labour they do all day long…

To make the nation bold and strong!

Meagre money to buy wheat and corn,

Not knowing which is right or wrong,

And they keep going on and on…

Three to four children and a wife,

This is a part of their life.

With misery and poverty surrounding,

Half past mid-night, the dogs are howling,

A tattered mat, spread on the floor,

Lying so quiet and sound as if no more.

In this striving world,

What is the full moon?

What is the clear sky?

Every night they are born,

Every morning they die.

By Sameerah Nisha Sultana