My Native Land Poem by Diwakar Bhatt

After a long absence from my native land,
Nostalgia compelled to take a journey in hand.

Many things of the past vividly appeared in mind,
Affinity could never die for the place I left behind.

The house, the fields, the woods all around,
The brook, the old temple, the village ground.

Above all, my school, where I knew alphabets,
Pious temple of learning needs no more epithets.

A curiosity impressed upon me on the way long,
How the people would react and how to get along.

Childhood friends and foes I could recall one by one,
With whom I played, fought with no malice but fun.

Village road was no more a dusty earthen track,
But black topped serpent to ride fast on its back.

The village itself lost its pastoral charm I could feel,
Exodus made it a forlorn place, the hush could reveal.

The deserted look was very frustrating at village wells,
It seemed no more a haunt of bevy of chirping belles.

Fields were no more lush with the green swaying corn,
Scarecrow looked tormented among big bushes of thorn.

Carpenter shop showed its tools rusted without repair,
Blacksmith’s bellows too were dead without a fresh air.

Temple echoing with chants of votaries, the holy sound,
The only living soul of the sleepy village I really found.

My parental home was only a ruin, a tell tale of glory,
Nothing I could do under circumstances but to feel sorry.

I didn’t forget to visit my alma mater, the vessel of rebirth,
Where the teacher baked a raw pot in the fire of his hearth.

Bowed to the steps dilapidated in utter neglect,
Treaded me long back to domains of wisdom perfect.

The same bronze bell hanging in the corner of ground,
Always obeyed the unkind mallet with the same sound.

The Neem tree was still alive with its flourishing entity,
Its shady boughs over disciples with compassion and amity.

The classroom I used to sit in, have the same rustic scent
The desk with my name scratched on was still in the front.

When I was lost in the bygone memories myriad,
A ponderous hand on my shoulders somebody laid.

As I turned back to find someone’s face with freckles,
Eyes of an old man searching through his thick spectacles.

At once I recognized him to be my mentor of early days,
Still he was at loss to recall my identity through the haze.

I addressed him with all respect and reverence immense,
By pronouncing my name he suddenly broke the silence.

Raised hands and pulled me in his affectionate embrace,
Plunged we both were in the sea of god’s virtuous grace.

His throat chocked by the overwhelming joy by my visit,
I told about me, my family, and my job in words explicit.

A flicker of smile came on his lips but tears rolled down,
Mixed feelings of joy and dismay could be easily known.

His soul resided in the campus nowhere he wanted to go,
In the service of humanity renounced everything long ago.

Met many of my childhood friends to reminisce days old,
Warm welcome I received not the formal greetings cold.

Laughter on every joke or on the anecdotes of past years,
Light spirited I became forgetting run of the mill chores.

Many long lost relations I could again establish to keep,
Alluring smell of native soil my heart could truly seep.

It was not a journey but a home coming for any native,
Where I was born and toddled to firm steps assertive.

With a heavy heart I bade good bye but to come again,
When my heart will feel the allure of native land again.