Father, a neutron star

father,

a neutron star,

once a red giant

amidst half-orphaned

younger brother nebulae,

once a protege without a master,

now a master without a protege:

when a young boy

yet to become fertile,

father was made to slave

in another household as a way

to hold the shaking ladder still

due to the premature death

of his own father;

and even back then,

characteristic of his

turtle-like strength of the back,

he did a hell of a job at

keeping the fire stove alive:

i guess it was his

upbringing that never gave him

the praises he had sought,

hence never learning

to give any either!

.....

father,

a neutron star,

last of the swans,

never really knowing

how to use their wings

to plan migratory flights,

last of the Harappans

preferring tried and tested ways

over unknown strange landscapes,

last of the Sigillarias

that have planned their

last supper before the

fall of winter and care not of

the ocean's expansion anymore,

and the last of the nine gems

of Persian kingdoms that

ignore fresh perspectives:

but alas,

his sons are shepherds and pirates,

his sons are wolves of the highest order

that are hell-bent on loosing

the established patterns:

.....

father,

a neutron star,

an ancient wisdom

that applies no more,

or maybe it does,

but to trivials

and no longer to odysseys:

and that is so because

his lessons were strong

but lacked love in them,

they lacked well wishes for any

well intended deviations from them,

they never knew what a hug could do,

what praises could do for inspired ways,

what a laugh instead of mild scoldings

could do when we talked of

undoing conventions,

they lacked the telepathy

to say that they were proud

when those conventions

did get undone,

and they lacked the courage

to give away their shackles

when it was time to let go:

and now,

his shepherd sons only grow farther away,

leaving behind memories from

a younger time when four-people-sleeping-

on-the-same-bed hadn't turned into

empty bedrooms filled with spider webs:

.....