Leisure

I like best the short walk I take

from my room to my class.

I am helped a little by

the various actors of leisure

I meet on the way.

First, the cat, as it sprawls

chaise-like on the seat of a motorbike,

its eyes half-closed half-open

yawning & making a vacation

out of a commonplace metro day.

Then, the row of plants

resting in the nursery shop.

They all seem to me young,

botanical babies.

Without a language yet

arrived in the physical world

with a disposition still of

the cosmic realm.

They do nothing but dream

pre-creation dreams,

while I am stuck here

in the endless cycle of doing.

The newly born and the newly dead

have it the best.

When you don’t belong anywhere completely,

you are without worry.

I even like the old man,

someone’s grandfather,

who takes out his plastic chair and sits

outside the family shop selling

two-rupee toys and one-rupee candies.

He has the look of someone

who has yanked himself out of

an unjust oblivion that was imposed upon him.

And now he holds his candy boxes

like shields to never let it happen again.

Even death would need

a damn good reason to take him away

when he says defiantly,

‘Can’t you see I give children their candy?’

Poem & Illustration by Nayanika Bhatia