You appear
to have withstood
time’s duress
as you watch
over a world
of plastic clutter.
Your sense of time
is forbidding,
but you keep intact
our self respect.
You have shut yourself
in an aura
that is yours alone.
Your changelessness
in flux
is the only surety
against the inquisition
that assails you.
You are the keeper
of our past.
Vertical guardians
overseeing horizontal quiet –
wayside offerings,
arrested in a moment,
away from passing history.
Your commodity
is your soul
held still, in the
imbroglio of time,
as you provide
shelter and rest
for wayfarers,
drawn by your etchings
in their souls.
This poem appears in Oral Scriptings: Poems by Esther Syiem (2005) published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Dr. Esther Syiem is a Professor in the Department of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.