My Fabled Friends

A daisy cup, a sparrow’s chirp,
The groggy bear’s unexpected plunge.
The imperial shores, the azure skies,
Are more of means to stir me now!

The humming bird, did it hum?
The rose, I know was there to bloom.
The grass is green, most roses red –
Some simple sayings – did I know them?

I knew of ever-changing days –
Summer’s sweat, slushy rains; fall, winter.
But where was my heart’s desire?
To create the essential eye for poetic reasons!

The toad did jump and blink with fright,
To see my blue roan spaniel’s move and vision.
Such laughter, relief, perennial delights –
Such joys came in me doubly only now,
Through Empyrean’s Grace, bathed in radiance!

Oh! Fabled Friends, stay by me with kingly pride.
I wish I could have the choice...
To give you no options!
Verse of others, poems of mine,
Are now my true life’s precious condiments.

Mumbai
1996

Geeta Chhabra

From the book: No Journey Ends by Geeta Chhabra