'tis a boy!!

11 – APR – 2007


I ruled there for many months, wielding my might.
Kicking her and moving around: freedom was my right!
Aye, it was my realm, my kingdom, my lair.
Yet, then it seemed to me, to be a touch unfair:
I confined in mother’s womb, while others roamed free.
Reflecting thus, few months later I too decided to flee!

Nature conjured then a miracle, an irony, there:
Instead of ‘losing breath in toil’, I had gained air!
So hard I strained for freedom, that mum started to seethe:
Though I became so weary thus, yet I began to breathe!

I kept my eyes closed but, out of much scare,
Afraid I was of so bright a light, ‘What fulgent glare!’
Feeling miserable and ‘womb-sick’, I cried loud and wailed,
But my weeping brought smiles around, “ ‘tis a boy!” they hailed!

I was so tired and hungry then, but who cared if I got weak?
It wasn’t I who paid them: my father did they seek!
Someone then raised me saying, “I’ve become a father!”
“Now then, put me down sir!” I wailed, “I’d sleep rather.”

It happens ever so often that what you say is ignored.
They just turn a deaf ear, however much you’d have implored.
But I, how could I have let him down: I my father’s lad!
So to make him listen thus, I ‘made-water’ all over my dad!

I exchanged arms thus; and felt that pulse with a start!
Hark! Is it not the ‘beat of my lair’: is it not her heart?
Yes, it could be none other save that deliverer of mine,
Whose generosity outpoured such, she invited me to dine!
What generous effluence did support this spring,
That ‘purest love’ as ‘life’ could this fountain bring?

Gratified thus, fancying a siesta, in her arms I yawned,
Lo! She started to thump me! Yet, instantly sleep dawned.
So did pass the first day - the first verse of my ‘Ballad’.
And such a woeful verse that too, yet it was not so bad.