The old man sat silently
Brooding over the brew
Of coffee that had gone
Stale in the slumber
Of time that kept on ticking,
Passing by always anyways,
Without reservation or doubt...
The days gone by
Has taught the man
What no-one could,
Without confusion or cloud,
Now rests his realisation aloud;
And he never thought, he would sit
At the same place his father and forefathers did...
As he recounted his days old,
Seeing life off-the-stage, cold,
That which he never realized before,
Not until he exited the drama-door.
Sulking made his mind wander
Into the far away lands of time,
And on his face did his smile chime -
When expectations didn't
Raise their ugly heads,
And irritations just didn't
Show up - Not because
It's right or it should be,
But it just happened like that -
And the day was lovely...
Because it was love, real -
Not of the mind,
But of something that
Throbbed with life
In the innards of
This mould of flesh and blood -
Some magic that had sparked!
But then returned the foggy mist,
His forehead wrinkled with guilt,
And his face darkened wth grief,
Skin striken with shame, no brief -
That when the sunflower had returned,
For one more tete-a-tete, one more turn,
He let his rage run, he let her burn!
Destiny for destiny's sake,
Hoping against hope's fake,
But what's not to be, can never be,
How much ever one longs to see,
The lingering scent of failure,
And the lamenting torture of guilt,
In perpetual limbo, stuck in silt...
The same lines ran and ran
Again and again in his head,
Almost like his daily bread,
Where days to his redemption tread...
"Don't let go an opportunity!
Don't be impatient in love!
Don't stop giving a second chance!"
-- Bhaskar Ghosh
Tue, 24th Feb, 2026
10:15 am, Kolkata
(Image generated by ChatGPT)
