Childish Childishness

With innocent eyes,
these trees, these plants,
these leaves, these flowers,
all look at us with expectations,
but we ignore,
we think it’s childish
to think about them,
as they are meant to serve us
not to expect…

With innocent eyes,
these birds, these butterflies,
these small creatures around us,
all look at us with expectations,
but we ignore,
we think it’s childish
to think about them,
as they are meaningless beings
of no value to us …

With innocent eyes,
our own children
look at us with expectations
for our time, our attention,
but we ignore,
we think they behave childish,
as we provide them
whatever they need for eating,
wearing, playing and schooling…

With clever eyes,
we look at the things
both material and immaterial,
as we have gained
the so-called requisite knowledge
backed by sundry information
available at our fingertips
to decipher what is in our interest
and what is not,
we have gone way ahead
of our childish childishness,
now slipped into
deep and dreamless oblivion…

It’s not generation gap
it’s thinking gap
as we have put on
our coloured thinking caps,
taking these off
will expose our childishness,
making us vulnerable
to suspicions and conjectures…

–Kaushal Kishore