Here’s a lyrical poem with a recall of Keats, in Different Truths. Elsy’s interpretation is interesting.

There is many a slip
between the cup and the lip,
so the aphorism goes.

Sipping the cup is bliss,
slipping the cup is woe,
so do most presume.

Present, scans the past,
with a smile in one eye,
and a tear in the other,

sizing up gains and loss.
Hindsight steps in
silently asserting,

“gaining what one wants
may become one’s want,
losing what one wants,
may perhaps be a chance”!

At times, it is luckier
to have the cup slip,
before a chance to sip.

Sipped cups are sweet,
those unsipped are sweeter!

Picture design Anumita Roy

Elsy Satheesan

Elsy Satheesan is a retired Professor of English. She had been teaching in colleges under the Govt. of Kerala, India. Currently, she resides in Virginia, USA. ‘Random Musings’ is her first volume of poems. ‘Summer Snow’, is the forthcoming one. Her poems have been published in national and international anthologies. Short stories in Malayalam have been published in weekly and fortnightly, in Kerala. Humanity is her religion, and poetry, her passion.

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