A Canopy Of Parakeets…

Friday, June 1st, 2012

The day has arrived when fledgelings join and fully-fledged ones take off. After a sojourn back ‘home’ all students are back to ‘Real Home’, at the hallowed portals for their new sessions of learning. A poem from Sri VN Prahlad.

 

In my father’s orchard

Were many trees

Some short

Some tall, towering

Above the third floor

Dense with verdant foliage

The short ones were harvested

Quick by bipeds like us.

But none dared reach for the

Ripening fruits on the top branches

Though by fragrance and colour

These fruits were tempting eyes and minds

To devise means to possess them.

Even squirrels and simians dared not

Scramble or leap so high

Lest they fall and break their spine

From spring to summer the blossoms grew

To green fruits raw, grew in size and

Weight and made the boughs bend

With benign humility, but

Still quite out of reach.

Lo the foliage filled with greater green,

Was swarming with parakeets.

(Twice born and like the best of Brahmins)

Fully fledged, and scarlet beaks

The verdant crown was doubled in size;

With beady eyes and squak and

Screech they examined their prize

By peck and lick they chose their pick

Each with his or her prize

Rose a well knit sheet as from a signal or a switch

Rose in a cloud of green

And flew away, together for a while

And scattered.

The sky was brightened

By a canopy green until it,

Broke in bits and dispersed.

Who knows what each carried off!

Some sweet some sour or savour,

But some at least carried away

Seeds for future trees under different

Skies and different climes.

What price education that liberates not,

What worth scholarship that expands not!

Ya Vidya Sa Vimuktaye

Sa Vidya Ya Vivruddhaye

 

II Samasta Lokaha Sukhino Bhavantu II

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