Howrah Mail
by M Hasan
18th August, 1999
Hissing aged cobra Hawrah Mail
A sluggish open urban drain
Slithers slowly underneath city bridge
With one dimmed diamond eye
Carrying its opaque glassy stained scales
Hiding within it a slumbering peopled sea
Of hopes flying on wings
Wrapped in silky shawls and feathery quilts
some half asleep with vacant eyes
Floating on deep known, unknown fears.
Freshly washed marooned train
Skin still with its own smoke stained
Wadding in a sea of slime and dust
Wheels its way piercing Bihar mines
Brick kiln jungles and muddy Ganges plains
Soiled human bands in farms and factory lines.
Thirsty and exhausted it pants
Halts for a while on waiting stations
Overhead tanks with short necks
Swiftly swallows water cascades
Often over-drunk regurgitates
Washing down its shoot and slime
Disfiguring aged cobra skin.
Cling on it hungry human ants
From Bihar plains with sheer dint
Flung over the roof, stand on doors
Crawl underneath berths when hovers sleep.
Getting scattered with each halt
As random numbers one by one
Or formless wandering groups
Sucked in Haryana mines and kilns
Punjab's expansive green fields.
For gathering their hungry children feed
Left behind in open sky
Marooned in furious streams
Day and night with their sweats
They moist fields for high yields.
