Evening Lights

Quietly, dusk sprays its inky waters over humanity.
The stars, like droplets of water sprinkled on God’s own canvasChase the blue birds away...say, “Leave! Your li’l ones wait alone”And gracefully, like the boatman lone,Sailing back home - a silhouette 'gainst the moon,The evening rests now where the day once shone…

And somewhere behind the hills in the vale of vines,Lights turn on; the deep desires of men dawn;Where on the street, cars customized, commissioned and earned run in lines.By the street that goes hill wards, beneath umbrellas held low,Men dash into shops where contentment and meals can be bought.Where verve and thoughts into any shape can be wrought.Buying mothers, crying children, dying laughter, swinging door—Pavements lit with neon lights, pass through the glamour of city nights.

The furnished rooms his eyes explore; to the roadside deity his hands implore.When clad in a golden garb, a child says, ‘Mom, please— “Dominoes.” Only two pizzas, ok? ’As the two hasten, with their heads lowered (not shame, to save them from rain),Into that world of scrumptious dreams,A child another, rugged, imprisons me in his soiled palms, grabbing my coat,Says, “Seth, bhookh lagi hai. Kuch khaane ko de na.”