Reflections On A Box Of Chalk

A box of chalk
has not in it poetics
but stalks of economics
and a family tree
of infinite in-distinction,
where it was born
in a placeless factory
nowhere;
And no one cares
how it fares
in its journeys and utilities
in the hand of teacher
in the mouth of child
in the impermeable dustbin
of waste and time;
It takes abstraction
into a room of sensibilities,
tells black from white
but the amnesiac duster
returns the written word
to grains of the infinite,
yet it serves by natural law
in eternal orphanhood
its creators’ providence;
Not one asks how it came,
but it comes,
Not one tells where it went
but it goes,
-the demi-god that created it
didn’t kiss and bless it
good luck and good bye-
the teacher won’t brandish it,
children like not to remember it
the men always will forget it
and nobody cares,
nobody cares,
nobody cares,
neither knowledge
neither all life’s
memory or mind
not even you
nor I

Abhyudai Dhawan