Email Poem

Your IP Address: 18.221.85.236
Your Email Address:
To Email Address:
Subject
Personal Note:
Poem Title:
Poem
For T. Ganesan (1931-1985)

It is as though an unjust hand punished you
As if the Adlerian guiltless position in the constellation wasn't enough
    toppling you from a pedestal
 
You were groomed for position
  for heading a family
 vacated by the head himself
out of time
 So they protected you pampered you
    the custom required it
 there were sisters whose dowries you were supposed to earn
   there were grounds whose circumferences you were designated to crush
there were centuries and goals you were bound to knock with stick and bat
   there were exams you were deemed to sail through
          there were jobs you were merely to inherit on merit
 The second son was sacrificed
      He was too close a second
They turned a deaf eye to your sacrificial deeds
                                   the suffocating cries   
"Work on what has been spoiled by the father and the mother."
Other hands worked on the second son
Other sacrifices nearly came to pass                       
Fierce jungles swirling muddy rivers
  stalking cobras poisonous thorns
aboriginal hunters
   even your suffocating arms to lock the broken neck
 fresh from a hanging
 
These worked
  where the mother and father failed
 and instilled a wish for survival in your Abel
 How could you be blamed for being the first born boy
 if the second took longer to arrive
or instead came as a baby girl
 
Neither parent may be faulted
How could either have known or foreseen
Your traversing of the desert alone
  often in shame
 in fear of being found out
 
You kept your back straight
You honoured your position
You wore that air of masterfulness
 in your stride
in your respect for the meek
    in your willingness to come to the aid of the needy
in your alas mind's reach
    bereft of the means to give it authority
 
In your own mind
  you had wandered far
    as far and beyond the distances of your strides
 within three walls   four posts  open ground and air
     you never bothered with approving thumps on the back
  nor the little-watched heroic actions on some turf
     nor did you recount these match-winning feats
    in a thirst for applause
 
You were the quintessential sportsman
You played your last game alone
                                               far away from your folk
      You had no wish for a farewell
 
Yet you are mourned in pain by all
 
 
© T.Wignesan - April 14, 1993
[from the collection : back to background material, 1993]
CAPTCHA Preview
Type the characters you see in the picture
Required