Echoes from my Past

               Echoes from my Past

 

O my bygone? Where that cold wind blows!​

Familiar hills, my life’s remembrance grows,

My pals, shiver and chortle in an icy draught!

Coltish, inspirited, fantasized and distraught!

 

The warmth of youth, the colours to unfold,

Daring and gallant, we braved chill and cold,

Aye with our rosy lips; and rubicund cheeks,

To kiss icy flakes; jig thru the winter weeks!

 

We danced and frisked; then skid and slide,

The snowing valleys; on the mountain side,

Notwithstanding icy blows, and biting lash,

We made the dart, aye our youthful dash!

 

Soon atop a peak, then fluffed inches deep,

With the clenched snowballs, down a steep,

Frisk to and fro, and sprightly whirl around,

Our youth, in the white and snow crowned.

 

Eyeing a poor shepherd, or some meek boy!

Giggling and tittering, our passions did buoy!

Guzzling and flushing, our passions’ wild flow,

Howbeit! We’d bopped, of our youthful glow!

 

 

 

Tears welled up, our joy and we hand in hand,

Chanting nursery rhymes, on that snowy land,

Hurtling one another, always sharp and quick,

Our faces set against, the flakes blowing thick!

 

The heaving breaths, leaving streaks behind!

Frolicsome and catching at, but never to find,

Empty hands, someone down the hill did run,

On the trodden trails, frolics played and done.

 

Blanket wrapped, our mothers prayed for us,

Never care! We gamboled and romped thus!

But ere the Sun sank yonder, we tracked back,

Her quivering lip; shaped for a hearty smack!

 

Traveling the corridors of my past, that I know,

‘Twill slip as phantom, like the hand held glow,

Whereof the memoirs, those gleam my today!

Otherwise I had fallen, to the blight and decay.

 

Gone by gentle echoes; have so faintly played,

But my cherished scenario, wouldn’t ever fade,

Odd are guiles of past; the secrets intricate art,

In slumber, play the cords of my sleeping heart.

 

 

 

By Dr. Riaz Ahmad, December 24, 2025