Author: Remitha Satheesh
The Uncle left the great city
with no goodbyes to press his humiliation
In the deep of the night, not even a torch
to light his craven path
Broken bits of his dreams and vows
lay strewn around the royal yard,
Mocking him through broken teeth
that grinned under the moonlight.
There, a failed promise to a sister
here, a crushed dream for a nephew.
Turned his back to the patient years
and crossed the desert enroute to his home,
There a lone wolf lay waiting one dawn,
with the spark to consume him.
The dying wolf’s groan drew him
He approached it broken, head bowed, hands trembling,
His finest weapon slipping off unclaimed,
the tormented man bowed before his master,
And the wolf preached his principle,
the lupine song to live by.
Laying bare his heart
naming the forces that drove him
“Look within you,
recognize the wolf, oh, son of the desert!
The laws of the land don’t bind you,”
he spat out through his faltering jaws
“Arise, awake and unleash the wolf within you
This is what you were born to do, do it well!”
The desert’s son soaked in the lupine wisdom
the haze lifting off his fractured mind.
Raised his eyes just as the wolf lunged
and felt sharp teeth plunge into his shin
The wolf held on with his dying breath
slurping down on fresh, warm blood
And passed on the unquenchable fire
in his desert veins into the slacking veins of the pupil.
The wolf within reared its head
pulled out a blade and made a clean sweep.
The teacher breathed his last still smacking his lips.
the student rose and broke apart the steel jaws.
And limped back to camp,
a burning man.
“Hurry on,” he barked out orders
as Jatara feasted within,
“Not ahead, but back; I have a job left undone
Turn our horses around to Hastinapuri!”
Note – Inspired by a scene in Prayagai of Tamil Novel Venmurasu by Writer Jeyamohan. The art used here for non-commerical purpose and it is copyright protected.
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