The old strap

 

The time with a scratched old strap

Often slips down his wrinkled wrist

As he recalls the same events decades later

Everytime there is a similar stimulus

For the past still surrounds his cage of bed

Warding off new events as they fail to trespass 

The sheath of wonted memories and emotion

Still vivid in the canvas of unreceptive mind

The meadow still sprouts tender life within the wood

The sap runs deep and spirals to the shedding bits

Often he gets hurt after a fall somewhere

But continues to stretch with the same zest

Forgetting that he branches are no more 

 Turgid with flesh to bear new fruit.

Sometimes there is the old chirp

That flaps back to the deserted nest

To dangle upon the woody twigs again

He smiles and pulls up the old strap again

To tick on his swollen wrist and fading pulse

The siren of an ebbing dusk on a grey shore.

Enroute Dehradun 

2350

6.5.26

15.57 hrs