* the old man *

Amid the sky's tinted orange stains,
the sun was being devoured by the mountains.

Under the dusk sky walked an old man,
watching him over, the poem thus began.

Alone, the old man was walking not, down the desolate lane,
his grandson, he was carrying on his back pain.

The infant's tiny fingers were teasing the deep wrinkles of the old man’s face,
while the old man's weak fingers combed his  grandson's scantily haired scalp.

As they walked along, the child got lonelier like those tall trees,
for the old man drifted back to his jolly young memories.

The evocative memories of the old man always had her,
she, who never did break their promise of being together.

She was true; it was her illness that served the barricades,
alias their love would have chuckled for decades.

It was the very lane on which they went for an evening stroll, she and him,
a stroll that had always pampered their love under the sky going dim.

The old man walked the road like a river flows its awry way,
he knew every turn that kept deranging the road's array.

The old man halted to feed the swift, mob like pigeons,
these pigeons might also be remembering her, he envisions.