Mortals

Ponds breathe lives and next day dry,

Restraining beats of thirsty shrimps,

Which then creep to stone and cry,

Later to some fossil prints

Trickling down from thatched huts,

Pearly drops of rain shower,

Thence pooling to puddle cups,

But vanish by next hour

Fragranced nectar from wild dills,

Or summer orchid’s glow,

As aged season fade off hills

Dried blooms fall and sweetness flow

Down onto same hungry soil,

Now reserve life for winter ants,

Where through summer, all they toil,

To feed themselves and infants

Those ants too, till next summer,

Survive, then they doth decay,

Nourishing roots of same flower,

That fed warm breathe through their way

Man toil hard from crawling bed,

Virtuous few feast diamond coins,

Some fight hunger every day,

Though with same hope all they pray

And same grounds doth emperors dance

Tearing out their charm apart,

Same soil where their rivals sank,

Their men crying with woeful heart

But as life passed half of cent,

Heedless approach to deathbed,

Same bed where their lives’ foe bent,

Using then same soil as blanket

Why thus live with height of greed

As of raindrops on desert,

Ought to vanish below foot,

To mere soil and nourish root.