My Morning Walk

When it was yet dark, wakes me up from sleep, my faithful alarm clock,
Prodding me to go for my reluctant morning walk.
When I venture out for my ritual stroll, the street dog greets me wagging her tail,
But because of my canine scare, I shoo it away with a shrill wail.
Some women in all their fine attire and make-up start their dawn time amble,
As if going to a TV studio for a shoot of a reality show of gold hunt gamble!
An acquaintance with a good family background enslaved to alcohol,
returning from arrack shop after his first dose of booze,
Wishes me in superfluous respected protocol,
enacting innocence on his face in an obedient freeze.
A rare scene of a hen and its brood of chicks just released from their coop,
Stirred my childhood memories of my grand pa’s home strewn with fowls troop.
Milk maids nudge their Buffaloes in to colony for their lactic business binge
Laborers heading for their work, take tea at thatched hotel on monthly account fringe
As I reached the main road, young boys and girls jog in their colorful track suits,
Athletes wearing over-alls, busy themselves with their running pursuits.
Middle aged women with their bulged bodies walk briskly at their best to
relieve of their menopausal woe,
Aging men hit the roads burning out calories to
get rid of their andropausal blues.
Much exploited City beautifiers wait at sanitary office for their muster rolls,
Before they disburse to various roads and colonies to resume their conservation roles.
Little underprivileged children, the unsung eco heroes, picking up rags and non-biodegradable waste,
Pitiably lurch on roads with hungry stomachs filling up their polythene bags,
to earn few bucks in a haste.
On my left, right and front at near distance, green hills appear in their grandiose elegance,
But the red and brown cancerous quarrying patches on them reveal man’s greedy irresponsible indulgence.
Small temples, petty shrines and Christian worship centers sprouted on both sides of the road,
Reveal the exploitative religious splurge of spiritual hawkers’
and religious brokers’ creed,
And the horrifying materialistic self seeking devotion
of new age people’s greed.
On my return, I encountered a Swineherd,
who was in search of his pigs,
When he loudly called out to them in a weird tone,
they rushed from nowhere and surrounded him in merry jigs.
My Bible tells that the Ox knows his owner and the ass, his master’s crib,*
My morning walk taught me, even a pig submits to his master’s grip,
But the man with his sullied psyche, plans against his brethren to mug,
And fails to heed the tender whispers of his divine master, remaining a mere prig!


* Isaiah 1:3