This Impatient Little Boy

This impatient little boy of age ten,
With his blue side bag and quirky glasses
It was a fine day with a playful breeze
Tapped his feet and saw the cars pass by,
The Toyota, the Maruti and the Mercedes!
He waited for his mother on the street,
The Crowded road in front of his school. 
Where vehicles and people were aplenty
His father told him it wasn’t so once,
For he did go to this very school,
Spoke proudly about the time long gone. 
When the road was clean, Spotless!
There weren’t so many cars so many people,
A lot of turf and not a trace of litter.
The boy couldn’t imagine that distant time.
As he waited all he could see,
Was litter and people too busy to care.
As the garbage played with the road, a love affair!
Garbage in all of its manifestation,
Cans of mountain dew and wrappers of lays,
Skin of orange riddle the space. 
People too busy to care
Walk without even so much as another glance, 
Caught up in the ways of the world, in a Trance!, 
That was when the boy saw it, 
One man. Just one man! Lifting up the garbage,
In his clean clothes and slip on shoes. 
No one now dared to litter as he 
Picked up the can, picked up the wrapper. 
The boy joined him and a miracle happened, 
 People gathered to clean the streets,
That day He went home and told his dad, 
The time that once was has returned, 
The road is clean, spotless! 
All it took was one man and 
An impatient Little Boy. 

Himanshu Goel