A Bonsai

On a sea strand, Have you watched empty shells Mercilessly tossed from sea to shore And from shore to sea? Often I shrink and reduce to such a shell, With jagged and broken edges Colourless and empty Lying half buried under the sand, Among many castaways, Waiting for the mother or father wave To wash me away. How tedious is my voyage Shuttling from father to mother And from mother to father Unable to openly confess Who weighs more On the balance of preference Through how many alleys and by ways I have wandered, questioning my identity! Am I a puffer fish Being toxic, the fisher men have discarded? Or a jarring note in a discordant symphony? I wonder! I often ask myself! Destined to grow In mercurial climes, Planted in arid shallow soil With the tap root trimmed, Branches pruned, Growth denied, I, a stunted bonsai! Still I dream to be a towering tree, That in profusion gives fruits and shade A midget aspiring to be a Goliath A hollow reed, Longing at once to be the singer and the song!