ALL DAY LONG....My poems for Shahid Ali...contd..8

come let us collect the pebbles
on the shore of this river
and build a mansion
with glass windows and latticed screens
hang all the trophies,
we won in the school
on the walls and
spread childhood dreams on the floors
and search for the 81 squares in the
suduko game


nine, all the nine on every side ,column and row
nine, and all the nine in every square up and down,
but then the ill clad sages in the ancient times
in deep woods and upon the hills
found the zero

what would we do without a zero?
our suduku will not do
for it has no place for a zero,
the multiplication tables
have to be memorized afresh

come let us count the pebbles
on the shore of this river
and make an inventory of our dreams.