LIFE CYCLE

                                                        by Ranjan Mathews [published in Asian Age 28.11.99]

                           When the weary day stretches homewards

                            And Darkness creeps on sunset boulevards

                            I look up to the streetlight

                            Waiting to Light up the Night

                            I see people hiding their emotion

                            Drifting like lonely islands in motion

                            Why lose myself in crowds anonymous ?

                           When faces don masks that fool none

                            Sporting prim ex-pressions of caricatures done

                            Searching to grasp an open hand

                            Over a bridge of fists unspanned

                            Nursing hopes thats dear to some

                            Numbers add to complete the sum

                            People head for old known hearths

                            To take again a hundred Re-Births !