To flowers once said dour thorns
I
For long faulted as wicked causing pain,
And condemned as crooks of a cruel kind—
Old prejudice or heartless brain’s refrain,
Repeated ad nauseam a point to grind—
An error all the same of humankind,
Yet, thorns for sure, villains we never are,
Veil not Flowers your harsh front hid behind,
Thorns might have cruel look, but kindly core.
Your spring blossoms, Flowers, bestirred by breeze
Oft a caress steal at an early dawn,
Or take your youthful buds on life’s new lease,
Who love to pinch a spike of a naïve thorn.
Try to be your own judge O to tell us:
Who’s innocent, who has harsh animus?
II
Innocent who’s, who has impish passion,
Your spring blossom no less than red rage is
To us— lifelong mendicants on mission—
You lure, sway us— meditating sages,
Whenever your youthful blossoms embrace
Us, try sway us from our austere a course,
And still, we thorns not once have lost our grace,
Blamed no less still in popular discourse…
That, innocent seems to be tender skin,
Not our kind oh with a rough exterior,
We thorns are scarce evil from core within,
Yet, it’s not so to this world of error.
Aphrodite shoots with arrows of flowers,
Whilst Shiva’s trident fair blessings showers.
III
Yet, weapon of war’s called Shiva’s trident,
Whilst flowers get undue paeans of praise,
These ways or world fail not us to amaze,
If truth assailed is, it’s no accident.
Why, wonder I, He who would trident bear,
Cares for no worship performed with flowers,
Scorches passion of world, poison doth bear,
Why Shiva over all deities towers.
The way thorns are, no flower’s ever known,
We point places to go, point to the time,
Point at duty, why kings wear thorn-studded crown….
Not flowers, thorns point to places so prime.
Rejoice O Flowers still, you win the day,
Whilst doomed are we to live a life of lay.
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Crown of Sonnets |07.03.2024| flower, thorn
Copyright ©
Aniruddha Pathak
|