Through Al Ain's dunes and every rugged wadi
I tried to write a tribute for the day,
But found that ink could never hold your grace.
How do you trap an ocean in a phrase,
Or map the quiet wisdom on your face?
A master of your time, precise and true,
A life of duty that the whole world knew.
Yet when the city gave way to the sand,
You took the frontline, walking bold and free.
You knew the hidden corners of the land,
Through Al Ain's dunes and every rugged wadi.
From strict routine to where the wild winds blow,
You were the greatest guide I'll ever know.
They wonder why my page remains so bare,
It's that a finite word cannot contain you there.
I miss the footprints that you left behind,
The steady presence that no pen can frame.
But every path I walk, I look and find,
Your guiding spirit leading just the same.
So let the poem stay forever incomplete,
Unfinished, like the conversations that I miss.
I will not try to trap you on a sheet,
But live the blueprint of the life you built for this.
No words can capture what you mean to me,
Because a son is his father's poetry.
Written by his son, Antony Ancil.
Kollam, Kerala — in memory of a life that guided every path since.