The Bulbul: A Serenade

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Seventeen years down the line I'm still writing. My best is yet to come. It's only too elusive. Anyway old grapes are the currants of today..not stale but something to wistfully savour. As I go back and back, I find this poem of mine, a serenade. With no simile and no metaphor, it was simply my unadorned muse. I wrote it on 25-201998, to be precise, when I hardly knew the meaning of the word serenade. Still I wrote it for what it's worth. I like going through it, reliving the moment and muse. Aha! A reward, a self-reward.

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It provokes a surge of nostalgia now
Aha! Once upon a time donkey's years ago
Aha! Those eventful moments of the days of yore...

The lovely little Bulbul

Braved the frightening look

Of a grotesque scarecrow

And sat upon its shoulder

With a deja vu writ large

And started to sing...
chui-to-ture-to-tui

chui-to-ture-to-tui...
His sweet inviting melody

His lively, enchanting rhyme.

Forcing his novice throat

Streams of rhythm

Escaped effortless

To far and near

To every cul-de-sac and all the corners
in quest of a connoisseur

His sweet little adorer
Finally to bump

Into that dreaming little doll

Seated there on the windowsill.

The cute little Bulbul

sang serenade and and sang once
And went on singing then on

In sweetened intervals

Of waiting and encores, for Dolly, the Juno

And she beheld motionless

Through her eyes eloquent

And curves sensuous.

Then on one fateful spur

The selfish intruder

The 'legal' owner

Of his long-forgotten doll

dying for a cuddle

Came, grabbed and escaped

In his briskest possible steps

Miles away from the rendezvous.

The lovely little Bulbul

Returned ready the next day

For even a sweeter spell

Of his heart-throbbing melody 

to melt her finally

But alas! With dismay discovered

The windowsill deserted

Confounding and clueless.

The cruel surroundings–
Sombre and sneering
Stern and sarcastic–
All had already assembled,
to ceaselessly deliberate
Sitting in judgement
For his millionth crime 
And his unmindful confession. 

None to say him an au revoir
Nor a parting promise for his memory lane
His undying hope for a miracle kindled,
Bulbul the impulsive, started to sing
A few more melancholy tunes 
Along the streams of tears
His lovely, lonely tears. 

Before bidding the reluctant goodbye
To his straw throne on the scarecrow
And the memorable dreamy window
The lovely Bulbul sighed 
melting layers of sentiments
Wiped the droplets of distress
In his sickly shaky hands
to mingle in moments
In the distant unfailing horizon.

Port Blair

25-02-1998

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By

A. N. Nanda

Trivandrum

04-11-2015

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