Chasing Sunshine

The line is a euphemism
For a human serpentine chain
That will bring me to the very front,
Before I can take flight.
The thought of which has my heart
Lodged firmly in my throat,
And fingers that to touch are cold.
The prison I’m escaping
Is beautiful in essence.
For it has unfettered my mind
And soothed my soul
Beyond what I would have thought possible.
And yet it has left me longing
For crutches to hold
My fumbling self
As it has ventured out time and again.
The prison may yet be
More expansive than the freedom I seek
Which is the return to everything familiar.
For what could hold the allure
And the promise of freedom
More than a journey back home?

The ashes have arrived.

There is no receptacle in sight
To hold them within.

At first it is held with reverence
Or at least, a modicum of deference –
There is a pervasive sense
Of the loss,
Of a life that has come to a close.

Presently, calm descends,
The hands that hold the bag of ashes
Set it down on the countertop
And then recede to the bustle of the world
To tend to the many things that need to be done.

The spell of whatever it was
That had taken over for the briefest moment
Has been well and truly broken.

The ashes have settled.

Safe in a bag placed
A few inches shy of the edge
Of a busy countertop –
Amidst keys, photo frames and countless other things,
None of which matter to the life
That is now contained within
A plastic bag, awaiting an urn.

To be a small flower
In a vase holding a pretty bunch
Of the biggest, most gorgeous ones,
Is as good as to not be in it.

What was the gardener thinking,
When they picked the blossoms
That would stand proudly on the tabletop?
It is hard not to wonder whether
Their choice of this unremarkable flower
Was nothing more than a lapse in judgement,
Or born of a moment of distraction.

The red roses stand
In full, majestic bloom,
They are the joy and pride of the room,
Flanked by the yellow and white lilies –
And amidst them all, in a corner
At the neck of the stunning vase,
An almost wilting, pale flower,
Past the glory of whatever smidge of beauty,
It might have once possessed.

To be that small flower
In that vase holding that pretty bunch
Is to not be in it at all.

The tea leaves dance
In the boiling water,
Lending to it,
Their rich colour,
Even as the aroma wafts
Into the room yonder.

The tea cup on the counter top
Is a faded blue with indelible stains,
And a chipped edge to boot.

And yet it serves its purpose well
As her dainty fingers clasp its handle
And she purses her lips
For the first sip,
Which is lost in a grimace
As the scalding liquid
Makes its way past her burned tongue.

The tea cup has sat on the coaster
On the unremarkable table
In the tiny room,
For as long as it has taken
For the sun to give way to the moon,
Its contents a watery, brown liquid,
Rendered unpalatable
By the mere passage of time.

She sits by the window
Watching through unseeing eyes,
The world gives pause to its busyness,
Even as she puts on the mantle of hers.

The day has not quite begun,
For the morning seems reluctant
To make its presence known,
To be seen and felt –
Much like those who groan
When their alarms go off,
Even as light struggles
To outdo darkness,
In a battle older than time.

The flow of cars outside my window,
Had started long before,
In that liminal state when you know
What is about to unfold,
Even without being told.

It is a rhythm that repeats
Every day, not missing a beat,
And yet it isn’t without change.
For I have lost the spring
In transitioning
From slumber to wakefulness.

We are like the stars
Billions of us
Scattered all over
Racing towards our ends
Never giving in to that truth
In sheer acceptance.

We think we love our progeny
So completely and selflessly
Because we brought them forth
Into existence
Although every life that was birthed
Is racing towards its certain end
Why would we wish that upon
These people we claim to be our own?
And yet again we never give in
To that veritable truth
In sheer acceptance.

We think we know ourselves
Our inner machinations
And our deepest motivations
Why is it then
Despite our deepest misgivings
We wake up to repeat the cycle
Of endless striving?
We have mastered this art
Of never giving in
To the blatantly obvious truths
Staring us in our faces
In sheer acceptance.

Just an hour ago
The view from my window
Was as windy, as it was grey.

And suddenly now,
As I look out again,
I see a streak of bold blue
And a gentle swaying,
Of the remaining leaves,
On the boughs of the Japanese Maple.

Can both be true,
The grey and the blue,
The wind and the gentle breeze?

The wind is moaning a deep loss,
It howls, wails and shrieks ,
Carrying with it the iciness
That could only be the harbinger
Of a cold, calculated death.

It is quite unremarkable,
This Banshee like demeanour
That the wind has begotten,
On a deceptively bright winter day,
And perhaps it is why the wind unleashes
Its icy fury with a renewed vigour.

The mountains are too far away,
And yet they do not fail to echo
Her moanful, soul crushing wails,
The faintest of which haunt you,
To the very core of your aching bones.

It is a distant cry
From a faraway place,
Deeply buried in the lap
Of that craggy crevice
To which the wind carried its agony,
And in having done that,
Found herself an ally.

They tossed her upon a rock
After they were done with her,
To be mauled and maimed,
And thereafter scavenged.

If she knew what was afoot,
She gave no inkling of it,
As she lay perfectly still.

Perhaps it was that her limbs,
And her parched, hoarse throat,
Were done for, as was her petrified self.

And so she just lay there,
Broken, exposed, undone,
A breath away from being unborn.

Where but some months ago
They had shimmered
Under the startling gaze
Of the blazing sun,
A bright, resplendent green –
Slowly, with the passage of time,
They mellowed to tinges
Of yellow and orange,
Then rich red wine –
And now they lie
On the cold, ground,
Brittle, dry, dead, and brown –
Nobody waxes eloquent
When they are thus reduced,
From a throne of promise,
And of striking grandeur,
They have been brought low,
And even with the dust
To which they return,
As the earth reclaims
What had always been,
Her very own.

She has no qualms
In receiving the remnants
Of erstwhile striking beauty,
Unflinchingly in equanimity,
Unlike the mortals
Who lavish glory
On all that glitters,
She carries on,
With giving and receiving,
As she has for an eternity.

When you seek wisdom,
In its profoundness,
Look not in the annals
Of books written
By mere mortal hands,
Claiming to be divine;
Look instead, in the seasons
That come and go,
For they are as ancient,
As time itself,
Breathing gently,
Through the waning sun
And the driest spells,
The timeless lessons
Of belonging without boundaries.