The Missing Road

Every morn is deceptively prim
until I stroll out to inhale a whiff
of tainted air; And am transported to
the days when it had a caressing fragrance.

I would roll a tyre with a stick on the
road, a pet pastime of yore, down
a kilometer through honeycombed, sparse
bungalows without a care or looking over;
Now I am now darting eyes on either side
to cross a well paved road, nerves in a jingle
to the hoot of wild cars, autos and bikes.

Be it the highway or labyrinth of lanes
eyes now swarm over a bevy of match box
homes where minds are in a huddle.
I never look in, know what they are.

I fly back to the evenings when I and
my cousin ambled across a quiet highway
rambling amid rare noise of scooting buses.
Years later it disappeared!