THE LOST FACE
I.
K. Sharma
Sadly I look at the face
framed in a glass cage,
the garland she wears now
twice trims my pace.
Her workplace weeps for the hand
that warmed many a tongue,
contents made there lit up
moods of old and young.
Her heart a pool of plenty
that grew wider and wider
as waves of faces arrive,
though my wallet empty.
A swan without banners
she sang her lonely song,
in her numb hours I ask:
‘your last command?’,
‘Feed the poor’ flows the voice,
that was the end of light;
it echoes, and will do so
till my frame goes dry.
No fire rose at her nostril,
flowers bedecked her lips;
old aids miss her silent gifts,
feel abandoned as pips.
From her ashes rises music
that in me shall not die,
no face, no face ever
shall fill my empty sky.