Friday, April 9, 2021

Ekphrastic Reena

 NAPOWRIMO 21 prompt 5 Reena Prasad pic

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A moment a sculpture for an extinct race

Of children who read from books at a leisurely pace


The drone hovered overhead soundless like a silhouette 

The tourist guide with yellow earplugs 

His mouth trapped in a weird looking slug

Droned on about the sight below

His charges, curious little kids to show


“The sights you see are of an ancient city, 

We’ve made life size models of it all so you can see

How people long long ago used to live

The grey area you see was called a road or a street

On which everyone would travel just look

They travelled in vehicles that moved on wheels 

Small and big and some low some high with wheels two or four 

Or even eight ten or sixteen”


A gasp of wonder thundered through the drone 

“You mean to say people travelled on the ground? “

“Yes isn’t it amusing, they’d be crawling all day long

And there on the side is a market place

A ‘Mall’  they called it those days


And right below is a monument most precious 

Dedicated by this museum to the extraordinary race

A replica of ‘learning’ as it was for millenniums 

People you see read from books or parchments 

Words written or printed and gleaned by the eyes 

They began the learning at a very young age

And those who mastered learning mastered the globe


This then is the life size model built for visitors you see

Of the civilisation then as it used to be”


His charges little children of another future

Clicked their tongues, virtually, at the virtual speaker

And wondered how it could possibly be

To live in that pre-historic fantasy


Satbir Chadha-06-05-2021

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