आइरिस कविता
I ring the bell for a thousand minds,
and watch young dreams take patient flight;
in rows of hope,in ink and lines,
I guide their days,I shape their sight.
But when the dusk returns me home,
where softer voices ought to be,
A stranger greets me in my own-
My son,untouched by legacy.
“Why read..,” he says,“when screens can show?
Why turn the pages when I can swipe?
Why search in books so old and slow,
When answers bloom with just a type ?”
His words are sharp,yet calmly dressed,
A logic born of modern flame;
But somewhere deep within my chest,
A silent grief begins to claim.
For I have seen what books can do,
They make a man from scattered clay,
They teach the heart what’s false or true,
They light a soul that won’t decay.
A phone may tell but not transform,
It feeds the mind but starves the soul;
It gives the facts in tidy form,
But never makes a broken whole.
I stand defeated,not in class,
But in the home I thought was mine;
Where values taught to crowds en masse
Fail to cross this fragile line.
O irony,so deeply cast
A principal with head held high,
Whose lessons shape the future vast,
Yet cannot reach his own child’s sky.
And so I sit with books in hand,
Their pages whispering soft and wise;
Still hoping he might understand
The depth no glowing screen supplies.
-©️Anil Kumar Mishra, Ranchi, India
