You want to step over my toes—  

Alright, but truthful if it proves;

Maybe there’s something in the throes

And I’ll not recount my woes.

 

There’ve been tales in hurried prose,

How, long ago, from sad furrows

Sprang up these scarletish woes,

How here the crop of evil rose.


O dour the winter wind! It blows

Night after awed night, but who knows

Between the frightening shadows

‘tis the shadowless who moves, who grows!


If you want to tread over my toes,

Be't so--in you my will I repose.

 


RY Deshpande


7 January 2008