Routines

Scratched notepads, hurriedly inked shopping checklists,

Often diverting into a frenzied attempt to doodling,

Stick on notes placed haphazardly on cupboards and mirrors,

Reminders notes–hash tagged, a scribbled unfinished poem

On a yellowed envelope… 

My essence spilling out onto paper,is what’s left of me.

****

Chores marked in diaries holding 

A forgotten rose pressed long ago, 

 Fragrant with bygone memories,

And then I am awakened by the alarm

Calling be back into the present…

Answer, I must to an online query, then

Cheques to be dropped in a tearing hurry

One foot in a task, another stepping out of mundanity

This is what life is all about.

****

Oh what I’d give to shrug off rushing

Into several chores: braiding my daughter’s plait

Packing lunch for work, sipping my cuppa tea comfortably, 

Chatting with friends over a muffin and coffee.

When that’s to be, I shall be wrapped in that

Tenuous moment– a wonderful fragment of my diary.

Either the shrill phone- calls for alacrity

Else someone howls to tip off my balanced stance

And I’m in against the clock,

A scramble, and dash, out of time’s sling

I’m flung… If this weren’t life’s essence

I’d shrink into lethargy, I’d find myself 

Journeying with the Lotus-eaters 

Whirlpooling through the vortex of Hades.

Can you then imagine how piteous life would be?

*****

© Mumtaz N Khorakiwala

( Batool Idrish Siamwala)

19-3-2021

Picture courtesy: Prophsee Journals