Lizard

First up, A very Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mothers out there! You all are doing a great job of balancing your life with your kids. A special shoutout to the women who are celebrating their first Mother’s Day. Congratulations!

Now let me be very honest with you- I tried my level best to write a poem about mothers, but I couldn’t. It was as if the words had deserted me. I thought and thought for hours (okay, several minutes) but the page of my notebook remained blank. So I’ve published what I could think of, even though it’s not remotely related to mothers. My sincere apologies to all the mothers and the people who were expecting something Mother’s Day-ey. I promise to try harder next time.

I asked the lizard stuck on the ceiling,

“What d’you do there all day?

It must be so dull and boring

Whiling all your time away.”

 

And the lizard sharply retorted,

“If I come down, you fool,

You all will die with your bodies distorted

For the ceiling will come down on you.

 

I am the one who carries this burden

All day long on my little head,

Just to prevent your end which’d be certain

If I left this roof unsupported.”

 

And then I thought-

Are we any different

From this lizard stuck on the wall?

We, the humans, are so ignorant

To think that without us, the world will fall.

 

If we don’t support the society

We believe it will a-crumble,

Our fantastical self-importance in this universe mighty

Is not exactly humble.

 

If we don’t protect our God

He will cease to exist,

You need to follow my faith, Todd,

Because that’s what I insist.

 

No life is vitaler than our own

We are the guardians of the galaxy,

All other creatures can be overthrown

But overthrowing us is a fallacy.

 

Nothing can work without us

We are the cogs of this cosmic machine,

We are the oil, and we are the gears

Of this contraption pristine.

 

Our galaxy is but a fragment of the world

The Earth is but a sliver of it,

Our country is a spillikin in the blue planet

And we are but a speck in it.

 

If all the humans died today

The cosmos won’t grieve over it,

It will continue to be in play

Over our corpses in this spiral pit.

 

We’re an insignificant scrap of the cosmic cloth

Not as paramount as we think we are,

So stop being the lizard on the rooftop

Swallow your ego like a drink at the bar.