Somoshree Palit
“Momma dear, do you hear
The silent fear tonight?
The skies were blue and lovely too
Baby blue in the light.
Hark; hark; now they’re dark,
No lark is there in the sky,”
The baby bird cried and cried
The tide it smashed the sky.
The rising tide flew far and wide, the birdies cried in fright,
The skies they roar and the gales they soar in a battle gore tonight!
Momma Lark smiled in the dark,
Said, “Hark, my sweetest child,
Cyclone and storm in every form
Hurts not a worm in the wild.
Hold me tight in storms tonight,
Till the break of light hug me,
A fairytale till subsides the gale,
I’ll tell you a tale, sweet pea.
The rising tide flew far and wide, the winds they cried in fright,
The skies they roar and the gales they soar in a battle gore tonight!
“Once upon a time,” she said in rhyme,
“A man in his prime – King Lear,
Betrayed by his lass, he said ‘Alas!’
‘This too shall pass,’ said his peer.
The saddened Lear in a maddened fear
Without a peer behind,
Dashed out in the storm in a frenzied form
With a storm that cursed his mind.
The storm was kind to Lear and his mind; it would be kind tonight,”
The skies they roar and the gales they soar in a battle gore tonight!
When that form, broke down the norm
They called the storm ‘Maria,’
The tempest grew, Prospero knew
What would brew off his idea.
The fiery Cloud laughed out aloud
And loud and loud he roared,
The West Wind died in the ocean wide
Denied, yet now adored.
Storms in lore battalions tore; he’ll scare no more tonight,”
The skies they roar and the gales they soar in a battle gore tonight!
The mother lark hugged in the dark
The little lark at her breast,
An innocent trust: no wind or gust
Must dare to break their nest.
The forest shivered and aspens quivered,
The thousand-rivered seas
Burst and bloomed as horror loomed,
Brought mountains to their knees.
Then from the East, the smiling East, on man and beast shone light,
The skies they pour and the winds they soar; the war was won tonight!
The breezes brush the golden lush
Of feathers that hushed the gale
Momma smiled at her sleeping child,
Slept the wild, wild seas and vale.
The sultry Heat was there to greet
Soft rains to which he’d bow;
Soft breezes glided, the storm subsided
As a soothing hand on a fevered brow.
The skies may roar and the gales may soar in a battle gore at night,
Remember my dear, my dear don’t fear, like birds in flight, alight!
****