Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A Flower By The Roadside



Everyone's walking.
I stand.
Still. By the road.
On the edge.
I stand.
And watch them moving past.
I think.
One can either move or stand.
They move.
I stand.
Two different experiments.
I know the result of mine.
I stand. But.
At times
I wish I didn't.
I wish I moved too.
Then I reconcile.
To be me
I have to stand.
What I want to know is
If the other experiment too
Similarly fails.
Do they who move
Too wish sometimes
That they were me,
Not them?
Because then, I could say
That all
Do sometimes wish
They were not what they are.
That it's not only me.
(It very much scares me,
to think
What if it is indeed only me?)
These moving people sometimes stop by
For a moment
And look at me, and think.
Then they exclaim
"Oh this flower! So lovely!"
I look away. Disappointed.
That is not what I want to know.
What I want to know is
Whether in them a thought is born
A thought, a wish, to stand.
As I do.
Or, in my place.
That is what no one will say.
But that is what I want to know.
That is what I wonder about
As I stand.
Looking at people hurrying past.

Japinder Gill

On Similar Lines, an older thought: Read here

4 comments:

Jay said...

I was on a casual visit to flickr.com, when I came across this pic. It set me thinking. I thought I would post it here. The poem sort of came out by itself.

Later, I went back to the website, and read the comments given for this pic. Reading them I realized really how vastly varied the workings of human mind can be! There were some who called it a "lonely, little flower", and others who saw it as "Hope".

We can play a little game ourselves here.

You've already read MY interpretation of this pic.

How would YOU interpret it?

- said...

My interpretation: I stand there alone, but confident, I dont regret the past,I dont worry bout the future, I am not sad of the fact that I am alone, but I am happy and optmistic, I know whatever is happenin is good for me and I am treadin my own path...I am the winner and I will always be! :')
It's al bout perspective!!

P.S. Thank you for your recommendation to my magboard post :) Great idea.. Am copyin it too! :)

Jay said...

Your interpretation made me scroll above again, and have a thorough relook at the pic. Nice way of looking at it :)

Sourcebound said...

who is at fault here?

the bird which answered to the call of nature and dropped the seed?

the gardener in a big house who abandoned this fellow when he was little because he is weak?

the pavement which yielded to time and allowed a crack for the plant to grow its root?

is the plant at fault here for growing up where it doesn't belong?


is the flower angry for not getting enough attention?

does the flower blame the plant about the surrounding location?


who can blame who when all are connected and all are one.