Wednesday, March 18, 2009

holding on

his gnarled hands clutched the crutches
yet he fell on that crumbling stone wall
crumpling on to the brown earth
it felt so natural, laying there
almost soothing his frayed nerves
for so long those have been spookily ubiquitous
looking up at the dark soulless night
no more did he feel like a burden to his family

31 comments:

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

poignant and very well written.

anthonynorth said...

Excellent and powerful.

Anonymous said...

A strong poem, and sad witness to a difficult life...

Tan said...

Oh! how expressive ... felt like watching him fall!!

Good one :)

Tumblewords: said...

Nicely done! It's reality by the line.

venuss66 said...

Very natural. Good one.

Anya Padyam said...

oh! a sad tale... almost want to wait for the 'happy' that is to come ...

Janice Thomson said...

Poignant and powerful piece.

Jeeves said...

Powerful one here.

Unknown said...

Painted a very clear picture in my mind.

iamnasra said...

True so powerful as always know you are writing

Anonymous said...

i love leaving the world behind, looking up into the night. i like how that freedom is expressed here.

PJD said...

I would like to know more about this person as a younger man and why he was a burden to his family.

Anonymous said...

what sad thoughts, makes me think of soldiers and how they lose their way after coming back from the devastation of war and how torn they must feel about coming back

Gordon Mason said...

Like the collection of sounds in clutched, crutches, crumbling, crumpling.

susan said...

I have lost family members who were ill or elderly and I believe they felt this way: it felt natural to let go.

Thanks for coming by.

Whitesnake said...

I really liked this!

Anonymous said...

coming to one's end is a perfectly sad ending when looking up alone... beautiful g....

Anonymous said...

Very powerful poem!

Wayne Pitchko said...

very nice words....like my poem.....it could remind me of Havana

Anonymous said...

nice....rem inds me of Havana

J. Andrew Lockhart said...

brilliant!

Sepiru Chris said...

Gautami,

I especially like the first four lines. They really set the scene.

Tschuess,
Chris

Anonymous said...

This was very thought-provoking, and a good use of the prompts.

Raven's Wing Poetry said...

I like this. Left me a little bittersweet.

Philip Thrift said...


I'm just reading The Collected Poems of (the late) Raymond Carter.

This reminds me of those.

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Linda Jacobs said...

Love the echo of "crumbling" and "crumpling"!

WithinWithout said...

But Gautami, what the heck does it mean to YOU? Yeah, it's beautiful verse and all.

But is it just out here for people to critique as a literary piece?

I want to know what you're talking about. Is that so strange?

gautami tripathy said...

No Chris, it is not so strange. I am glad you asked. Maybe I should have explained in my post. But I seldom do.

No, I did not write it for literary critiquing.

In India, old people have to fend for themselves. Most are abandoned by their families. There are no old age homes to speak of. At least, not for the very poor. There are that many NGOs either.

This in fact came from a very tragic incident. We used to see an old man on crutches sitting near our school, selling small goodies. He was too old but there was no one to take care of him. His son and daughter-in-law had driven him out of his home. He used to sleep near that wall, where he sold his stuff. One day, he wasn't there. He had died during the night, near that very same wall. Even then his son did not come to claim him.

This came out of that. And believe me, this is not just one such happening.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That was great! It brought back memories of my father who struggled using a walker in his final years.