Disrespect

At the crematorium
The silence is intolerable
For friends handholding
The bereaved son
Waiting for the ashes,
Their grief is short-lived ---
They hasten to the mundane,
Lament the hike in property tax;
Compare electricity bills
Envy the colleague
Who has consumed the least;
Someone says driving a car 
To office and back
Through peak hour traffic
Is no more a pleasure
All agree it's better to take the metro;
They gossip with glee
About another who couldn't come
Who is still without a permanent residence

Not smart enough like them
To have a roof of his own;
They seem glad
To engage with issues
That should seem trivial
In the presence of death
Even disrespect
To the memory of the dead;
For them it's a colleague's father
They knew and did not know
Just an old man whose number was up
Once they return home
There will hardly be any talk of him
For the son or even more for the daughter
There will be a ceaseless swell of memories
That will turn the night as sleepless as the sea

Desert

The desert is not always
Just a sweep of dunes
Lack of greenery
With an excess of sun
It can be an absence of tears
A dryness of heart
That watches agony
In unmoved silence
And may even smile
But the rain
Doesn't skirt the desert
It doesn't give up on it
Even if nothing 
Grows there now
Knowing what could lie
Dreaming under the sand
May stir to life
When it's time to die