On the Cusp: Three Sixty-Five

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I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year 2015. 
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On the Cusp: Three Sixty-Five

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Won’t you ask me

What I did with the gift you gave

What I did with the money you lent

Exactly before days three hundred and sixty-five?

Now, again, your generosity is abloom

Your coffer is open and your offer alluring

You’re the great giver, not for nothing.

The investment you make in me

Not waiting for the return,

No balance sheet is ever drawn,

What’s that you expect of me?

What sort of business you are in!

Aren’t you the optimist incorrigible?

When you see me squandering

All you gave were thinning and thinning

Did you ever bother me to stop

And demand a report from me?

Nope! You didn’t.

The blunder is yours you’d better own

And now, how can a better tomorrow

Grow out of a yesterday wasted?

Where is the seed you’ve sown?

You want me to till that land

Sprinkle it with my blood and sweat

And wait for that better tomorrow!

You’re the great merchant

You know your business

Your investment:

You’re the great peasant

You know your crops

And your yielding patch of land:

Looking forward to a turnaround…

Now, the business is the same

A cycle of three and sixty-five,

The land is as big and as fertile

As a year ago it used to be,

I know it only too well

There’s only so much capital in the business.

Your business must go on…

It hardly matters

That one day I’ll be eased out.

Your crops must grow luxuriant…

It hardly matters

That one day I’ll fade out of memory

And lose count of three sixty-five. 

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By

A. N. Nanda

Shimla

1-1-2015

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