Zeitgeistlyrik: Grow With Love & Other Poems (Satis Shroff)

THE FLAW (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

I constantly live in fear.
Angst to be unmasked.
My spouse knows it.
My daughter knows it.
But no one else does.

I feel like a failure in life,
Because I have this flaw.
My parents had no time.
They worked and slaved
To earn our daily bread.
Father came often with a bad breath
From the taverns and inns.
He beat us and mother.
My teacher thrashed me too.
I had concentration problems.

As a child I had to work
With a wooden hoe and a bull,
For terraced farming wasn’t easy,
And my father was a farmer.

I felt ignored by my parents.
My mother would have helped me
Were she not perpetually tired
And at her wits’ end.
I cheated at school
But didn’t pass the school exam.

I grew up as a man
Without reading
Without writing.
I had the gift of the gab though
Throughout my life,
And even bluffed some
Quite a few sometimes.

(c)Satis Shroff

GROW WITH LOVE (Satis Shroff, Freiburg) 

Love yourself
Accept yourself,
For self-love and self-respect
Are the basis of joy, emotion
And spiritual well being.

Watch your feelings,
Study your thoughts
And your beliefs,
For your existence
Is unique and beautiful.

You came to the world alone
And you go back alone.
But while you breathe
You are near
To your fellow human beings,
Families, friends and strangers
As long as you are receptive.

Open yourself to lust and joy,
To the wonders of daily life and Nature.
Don’t close your door to love.
If you remain superficial,
You’ll never reach its depth.

Love is more than a feeling.
Love is also passion and devotion.

Grow with love and tenderness.

Schwarzwaldlyrik: SILENCE OF THE MORNING (Satis Shroff)

The silence of the morning
Is broken gently by the friendly
Tweets and chirps of birds
Hidden among the Schwarzwald foliage.
An amsel lands on a branch
And listens.
A bumble bee dances by.
And out in the distance,
The blue Black Forest hills,
Studded with myriads
Of pine trees.
Lush green meadows,
Where the snows lay
Only a week ago.
I sit here on a ridge,
Overlooking my house,
The red baked rooftops
Of my German neighbours,
And watch a Mäusebussard
Flying languidly with keen eyes,
Swoop down to grab a mouse
In Meier’s meadow.
The three rotors of the windmills
Are moving in the distant hills.
And below the bustle of Ebnet,
A picturesque town
Across the river Dreisam.

Glossary:
Amsel: blackbird
Mäusebussard: buzzard that eats field mice.