Grey walls, grey buildings, grey tower,
Everything seemed grey;
I stand amongst the parched river, under the grey sky,
Where hope robbed itself of hope,
Where the owl and crow mourned among the thorns and dried up leaves;
Broken earth devoid of rain for years,
Nature hath lost its glory,
Fragmented, hollow souls leaned against one other;
For death is better than the lives of these dead souls;
Even death did not welcome them.
Yellow smoke, yellow leaves, yellow souls
Everything seemed yellow;
I stand amongst the living souls
I stand amongst the dead souls.
Young souls battle for food amongst the rags
Shrunken woman with rough-dry tresses,
Lads scratching the earth, killing time, killing ants.
I longed for the nightingale’s voice
I longed for the nature’s lap
I longed for the lost glory;
The dead, hollow-fragmented souls smiled amongst all at the party,
All smiles vanished. Eyes drooped
For their shrunken dried eyeballs could not face me.
Standing amongst nothing,
Wondering what my death would bring to the world?
Misery piled upon misery?
Even death did not welcome me.
Wondering like Eliot’s Prufrock,
“Do I dare disturb the universe”?