Prof. P. P. SHARMA
He gave of himself freely to all who came
Living like a poet he was
Rushing to save one man from falling
Into the chasm yawning below
Lifting yet another from the track
When the train came chugchugging
by
Never counting the cost
Never brooding on the loss
Suffered by the Muse he adored.
He ridiculed the saint who kept himself in tact unspent
On the trials and tribulations of the week.
He called him a stone unaffected that remains
Past the swirling waters of the stream.
The votary who worships at the shrine
His eyes closed and breath suspended
Accumulating the merits for the hereafter
The poet decreed depraved beyond redemption
When a frail man hove in sight
Trailing behind him grimy-visaged woe-begone folks
Baring his chest to an arrogant empire
Kindling with vision a moribund mass
Touching the sick where it ached them most
He fell prostrate at his feet and called him a god.
When fire had left white scars on his hands
As he could not just look on when a woman was burning
His opponents called him a leper in derison
His eyes overflowed with forgiveness as the eyes of one on the cross.
A poet indeed he was for he lived poetry–
All his life was a consecration and a song
He was too busy living poetically
To keep count of the poems he wrote.
Don’t judge him by the books he has left us
That’s a criterion for the pedestrian.