SERENADE

SERENADE



Should I wail in my sorrows?
Should I rather rejoice?
Along with sorrows He has
Also given me joys.

On reflection I think that
I do none of the two.
What happens is pre-ordained
Man has but choices few.

In spite of this, I have to
Admit failure in life.
I neglected my duty
To my devoted wife.

In the past I have ignored
The feelings that are deep.
I neglected emotions
For superficial peep.

Men are too ignorant of
Women’s aspiration,
Their hopes and their ambitions,
Their fears and intuition.

Women too need to be loved,
They cannot only give.
For a lapse occasional,
Men should learn to forgive.

My regret is that so long
As my wife was living,
I was too demanding and
Too little forgiving.

I was often too busy,
For her, I had no time.
Male arrogance had often
No place for things sublime.

Now for me the world is changed,
She is with me no more.
I live now a lonely life,
And dwell on days of yore.

Man is, without a woman,
Just a rudderless mast.
I have learnt this too late, now
I can’t alter the past.

Yet this realization
Has me a poet made.
In her memory I do
This poem serenade.


* Written in abcb 7-6-7-6 format

M C Gupta

Created: 21 October 2003