The lanes that were once trodden

P.C :- Dan Meyers; Unsplash

The yellow sunshine fills in rooms amass with laughter,

Day breaks to chirpy noises from a mynah abode a nearby nest,

He lands on edge of the sunshade eager to try out his new tune,

Smoothening a high pitched octave he dishes out a melody,

While the home gets ready to break incoming dawn,

The keen yellow plumage around his eyes spots a worm, so tiny,

Shuffling around the home, getting ready for breakfast, members big and tiny,

Colours of their home rings aloud with plentiful laughter,

It’s a rule there to enjoy a meal as a family at dawn,

Before everybody leaves this colourful, chirpy family nest ,

Crispy, hot dosas are neatly arranged like lyrical melody,

Setting agenda for another day to a lovely tune,

Chirpiness of mynah fills the home, as he calls out his tune,

Where does he get all this energy from his self, so tiny?

If you’d observe he starts everyday with a different melody,

Some days it rings of sadness and others it sings of mystical laughter,

He hops in a jiffy from his nest to the sunshade and back to his nest,

From dawn to dusk and back the next dawn,

This is a story of a lively home everyday at dawn,

As they go about setting their rhythm to a daily tune,

Now they’ve all flown from the nest,

Their own tiny identity in the world so big, an identity, tiny,

Devoid of spaces invasive with their mirth and laughter,

That home has turned into a house of bricks craving people and melody,

The yellow sunshine used to set the day’s melody,

Now even though he breaks in eagerly every dawn,

The tunes of mynah have no audience with poetical laughter,

Cobwebs have filled the house, setting tunes,

Of gloom and grey leaving no space, albeit tiny,

Creepers and cobwebs leaving no space for a mynah’s nest,

Dusk sets in as early as dawn, birds returning to their faraway nest,

While this house stands all alone, bereft of warm melody,

The space that was once their home weeps copiously, tears roll big and tiny,

Every day breaks, birds flock at dawn,

Only to forlorn house, remembering its glorious past with solid tunes,

And colourful mirth and laughter.

The keen yellow plumage around tiny mynah’s seeks a tiny worm from a nest afar,

Setting daybreak to a melodious laughter,

A tune that brings a smile at dawn on this house long forgotten without any nest or home.

417 words.

Poetry form :- Sestina

More about Sestina :-

A sestina consists of six stanzas of six non rhyming lines followed by an envoi of three lines. The lines are almost always of regular length and are usually in iambic pentameter – an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (iambic) and with lines of ten syllables, five of them stressed (pentameter). The words at the end of each line are repeated in a different order from stanza to stanza:

• Stanza 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• Stanza 2: 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3
• Stanza 3: 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5
• Stanza 4: 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4
• Stanza 5: 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2
• Stanza 6: 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1
• Envoi: 5, 3, 1 or (less commonly) 1, 3, 5 or 2, 4, 6 (Source :- Victoria and Albert Museum)

Acknowledgements :- Thank you Val for hosting August Scavenger Hunt ( Form :- Sestina ; Theme :- Exploration ) and thank you Laura for hosting poetics at dVerse ( Theme :- Outside, looking in). Thank you all for stopping by and reading.