The Last Resort

Bahena Okram

What does darkness look like?
A bottomless abyss of gloom haze-like?
Or a bleak dungeon where souls’re bound maze-like?
Or a pitiless night like this, death and living alike?

The old couple walks in the chilly moonlight.
Not a word could be heard tonight.
But for the cruel December wind in delight
Playing about their tattered covers with no plight.

How far from home, they do not know.
Do they have a place to call home now?
That their very son has the door shut and latched,
The door of his heart, it makes them ache.

Their faces bear the coldness inside.
Nothing’s there-only a deep furrow opened wide.
Weird images haunting their minds like tides.
When their very own life strangled them alive.

Yes he was their life-a growing tree of hope.
To him they showered every joy and love
And now he gave them a cold stare!
With words dagger-like as if a nightmare.

His shrill voice still lingering in their ears
To them it seem but his tantrums of early years
Cheating themselves upon the dreary reality-“It’s not true.”
Oh! Only if this night was some sad dream!

Still they want to believe it didn’t happen
Their beloved plaything has turned a leviathan
Their fancies of a joyful death has he torn
The only words of the two minds forlorn-

“Never knew fickle are the human bonds
But son, can you do without this aged hands?
This old wisdom stacked over ages?
Your every loophole did they mind.”

Not a shelter in the wide mortal expanse!
Not even a shady tree for them remain!
Only stretches of an abandoned desert lay,
That welcome their mocking shadows gray.

Gruesome is the night grimming with flashes
They now know they can’t walk further,
With lips parched and eyes blurry,
With a prayer and a plea, their grief they burry-

“Ruler of heaven and hell, monitor of thug and sage
Hear not our plaintive yell, see not our teary gaze.
Forgive the tiny soul its hurtful frolic
Bless him with life’s glory and bliss.”