Bismay Mohanty

It’s the twenty-first century  Amidst all nature’s fury Bioweapons inside our respiration Clueless who planned the conspiration Still, exploration of life is on Mars After all, life on Earth itself is a farce A new season arrived in this danger Where known became strangers And strangers turned into relations Bridging actions to needed deplorations When all of this ends, I believe A new era is where we will live No more excuses or formalities For actions, powers, and loyalties Missing till now was the meaning of life The quest to it is more lockdown and strife.

    To the mother Whose heart lies in caressing her child, Doesn’t lose the habit without any remind Even when her little one begets a little one Even after the need of the same for herself has begun At no remarkable point, the same she could agnize And thus, time flies.   To the father Whose sense of saving up till neck Spending little on own and fixing wrecks Forgets to discontinue despite no need, when old Journey from youth till grey hair is foretold The transition is unknown even when he dies And thus, time flies.   To the child With the want to grow up and earn like the elders he adores Till money is all there; so much that nobody will work anymore Only in the end when it is known that money isn’t all Troubling gets many of those goals, lifelong that he had haul From that of others to his own philosophy, gradually he abides And thus, time flies.   To the dreams That lost paths in between highs and lows So much that it no more

A decade ago Not long back, one day She stood at the balcony. Her brother’s friend had come to meet him The boy on cycle looked at her blank As if never seen a girl before Or never someone so beautiful Did she match his imagination? Of fictional characters In books and movies. She smiled at him And kept smiling back each time When she knew that he came daily Just to see her, in the evening From the same balcony-road distance Properly maintained; No, the era wasn’t that of the pandemic When people stood at distance And wore masks, Love was always a virus though.   She recalls today on the same balcony When the friends are no more there Who claimed ‘You deserve better!’ Seeing his curly hair and skeletal body, And various aspects that were not proper. He no longer comes to see her After standing there for hours Through winters and all summer, Heavy rain not to forget at all; She never made any effort.   In the twenty-first century, When parents