GREEN AND
YOUNG
Srinivasa
Rangaswami
Young I am
as I was
When I was young.
The children in the neighbourhood
call me grandpa; I don’t mind,
but wonder why, when actually
I am their pal.
The first patter of sun-drenched rain
still sends me all atwitter,
as the head earth I drink
to the brim of my being.
That dreamy-eyed boy by the puddle
I can join, to launch on voyage
paper galleons.
to virgin shores forlorn
beyond boiling pirate-infested seas.
The maiden next door
eyes me as one beyond her hedge,
while, in truth, I am her mate.
Not cloyed with life’s rich repast
but avid still. I behold the world
with a youthful eye and a vernal heart.
The palsied cronies on the park bench
accost me as one of their ken,
unknowing, I do not belong with them,
perhaps never will!
The children in the neighbourhood,
the maiden next door,
the cronies on the park bench,
they do not know:
Beneath the autumnal bark
lives a tree green and young.