gulab khandelwal selected poems

I have arrived at the foot of the ladder
Through which my father had gone up,
I was a child then,
And did not know that he would never come back.
There was a painful smile on his lips
And a helpless sadness in his eyes.
He turned back and looked at me
From each step.
I did not understand,
What hangman’s rope was tied around his neck
And was drawing him away from. me.
Yet, there was a radiance of divine love
On his face.
He might have been leaving me,
But he had full confidence of his immortality.

I will also be not afraid in going up like him.
O father!
If you are immortal,
How can I die!