Devendra Bhatnagar: Poetry

My Father in His Garden

I had gone a visiting
my father’s home.
He was out in the garden,
the winter sun on his back
tending to his garden plot.

Recently he had lost his wife.
Since then he had immersed
for longer hours, nurturing
the pots and plants,
I guess he could talk freely
to them about his loss.

Today as I filled in the chatter
of family news, this and that,
I was drawn to his gnarled hands
hoeing the mud around the bonsai plants.
They matched the stubby roots
that grew around in the pot,
both knotted in the fullness of years.

The bonsai and he shared
a weathered and bent look.
Both had this quiet dignity
of years of shaping themselves.
Character writ large across
each vein and every capillary
that traversed their limbs.

Their lives had withstood 
tribulations and joys of time.
There was sap within the leaves
and limbs to still re write time.
In the garden they had strung
a friendship that filled each day.

In between tending to the plants
he would glance lovingly at me,
savouring my intrusive presence,
though dare say welcome company.

---

Walking by the Ocean

Dwarfed by its immensity
that never made me small,
on the contrary I borrowed
strength from the waves
to rise above who I was.

Touched by its wild beauty,
power that was manifesting
waves, that rose from depths,
rushed ashore to meet and
to shape a young boy’s dreams.

The shrill cry of the seagulls,
bouncing off the white surf.
The sun rising daily in praise,
and dipping in obeisance,
I spent hours so enraptured.

Young as I was, old as you are,
you brought adventure to me.
I was a pirate sometimes,
even a fisherman on a boat,
a sailor on ships, finally I became.

Nostalgia brings home my days
spent on the seas by your grace.
I learnt to live by your rules,
patience a virtue that saw me through,
you unveiled much of life to me.

Walking by the ocean today,
your warmth in each grain of sand,
a close embrace in your breeze,
your words resonate from the deep.
I have never really left you, I whisper.