The Boy (Re-post)

This may not be categorised as the best but this is definitely my favourite. Every time I read this poem I still feel the same emotion and what made it special for me was when my son Avi chose to recite this poem in his school recitation competition. That day the poem became a memory for me. 

In the by lanes of the terror capital,

There is a dusty ground.

I saw a small boy playing with marbles

Surprisingly he made no sound.

He must be nearly six years old

The baby look persisted

His face was round with a button nose

And his eyes glowed bright.

There was a speck of dirt near his little mouth

But his smile was what held me still.

For days I had met the leftover people in this bloody town

He was the first one who neither cried nor carried a frown

I picked my camera to click his picture,

And what a pose he gave.

He smiled at me with all his might,

In his hands he held his marbles tight.

His clothes were torn, but his soul intact,

His shoes were tattered but his spirit unscratched.

I asked him about his home, he said he had none.

I asked him what he ate,

He said, “Kind people sometimes throw me a bun.”

“But I have marbles you see” he said,

“And they are enough for me to have fun.”

That night as I retrospect my work of the day,

The boy’s happy face, kept my focus at bay.

The next day I walked back to look for the marble boy,

The ground was dusty as ever but the boy was not there

I looked around hoping to find him in some corner eating bun

A passerby said, “You will not find the child again cause now there is none.

And when I questioned why, he said,

They snatched away his marbles yesterday,

In his hands he now carries a gun.”