Narayanan Ramakrishnan - A JUNGLE HOME

Returning home, in the evening, bit late
Sipping a cup of coffee, piping hot, in no haste,
Remunating of the ruins of the day, heart cannot but paste,
I sipped dropp by drop, nourishing in full, its taste.

A mosquito zipped past in search of blood,
Rounded my ears musing for its food,
Irritated, waved my hands both and dropped it dead;
No remorse in me, as the life in it, to me is, but, dud.

Then I looked up and saw a lizard screwing it tail
To gobble up a moth that stood, ready to fail,
A grasshopper, too, on its wings and another liz on its trail;
This one had a saviour in my wife, and the hunter stood pale.

Daughter rushed out, yelling, cockroach in her room,
Silly thing after all, I killed it with a broom.
Then I saw my pet cat after a rat, for that only I groom,
To kill and banish and make our life, all bloom.

Butterflies too visit us, so too insects too many, on any day,
Gadgets and repellants we have, to keep them at bay,
We too share our house with ants, spider and a dog astray,
For all, we have our own means to drive them away.

Our house is but a jungle of lives many,
But where only jungle law unfolds over all insects, tiny
Selfihness embodied are we, so for our comfort we kill, creatures, any
That put spokes on our wheels, uncanny.

(Charity begins at home and also ruthlessness.)

Narayanan Ramakrishnan

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