Chasing Sunshine

She fills dirt into a pot
Shakes it up then pats it down
All the way till it’s near the top.
She places a seed firmly in,
Moistens the fresh soil,
Then places the pot on a ledge
By the French window,
And then the job is done.

The pot sits by the window
It has, for more than a month,
Soaking up the morning rays,
From the majestically rising sun,
Getting drenched by the drizzle
Gently sprayed from the watering can,
All around it, there’s a bounty,
Of nature’s verdant beauty,
Spilling over from the garden,
To multiple pots bearing plants on the floor –
And yet for all that, it stands bare, an eye sore.

The boat rocks gently by the pier,
Held in its place by a rope
That serves as the anchor.

The tide comes in,
And he decides
That it’s time to set sail;
So the boat starts its journey,
Just as the sun sets,
Into the fading light of the evening.

If he had qualms,
He didn’t show them,
He took them along with him.

The storm arrives
Like a wild child,
Breaking through the calm
Of the passive night.
The boat is now wildly tossed,
Upon the choppy waters,
Of the roaring sea –
Its moans are drowned,
As are his.

The boat rocks gently
On the waters,
Now stilled under the yellow
Of the wakening sky;
It has nowhere to go to,
And nowhere to be.

The depths of the sea
Rise up in graceful swells,
To steer the boat along,
On its aimless journey.

The clouds have hung heavy
in the pregnant skies
For days on end now.
Through the oppressive heat
And the lingering sweat,
People have looked at them,
With eyes forlorn,
Waiting for the rain,
That the clouds seem to promise
Will arrive soon,
Riding on a downpour.

When the rain comes finally,
It is not as if
The floodgates opened –
Nor even a garden sprinkler at its peak.
If it were a steady drizzle,
Even that would be a welcome relief –
But no, it was none of these.

The rain came down,
No, it hung in the air,
Like the suspended disbelief
Of the human collective,
That saw the condensation
Rather than feel it –
For it was nothing more than
A vast expanse of mist.

The sweat hangs close to the brow,
The upper lip, and then crawls down
The sweaty skin, beneath sticky clothing.
There is no dearth of moisture here,
The clouds haven’t failed,
The fault lay in their faith.

You look around you –
There are scores surrounding you,
Some smile politely, then make small talk,
None of which strays beyond the weather,
Which is no longer summer –
The chill a harbinger,
Of a lonesome winter.

The train left the station
A long while ago,
You are farther from the start,
Than you are to the finish.

Despite your discomfort,
You’ve come to realise,
That the best recourse
Is to stay put,
In this bustling carriage
So full of life.

Perhaps it is,
That some of it will rub off,
On your lonesome soul,
Nudging you an inch closer to whole.

The green of the fields,
And the blue of the lake,
Rush past you,
But you don’t take them in.

As the day gives way
To a gentle night,
You try to settle in
But sleep takes a while.

In the stillness of the night
When all else is quiet,
You are finally not alone,
Seized as you are,
By your demons,
Who’ve bided their time
Rather patiently,
And come hither now
To keep you company,
Even as you cower,
And shrink within
Your flimsy blanket.

She stacks them up,
From the bottom,
To the very top;
Each layer adding weight,
To the increasingly precarious tower.

When it comes tumbling down,
She is very nearly on her way out,
The lights dimmed,
And the silence around
Is deafeningly loud;
It is just as she had known it would be,
The unsettlingly eerie quiet
Before the crash of the storm.

She casts a final glance
At the broken remnants
Of her ungainly tower,
A multitude of layers,
Painstakingly gathered,
Over a handful of decades,
Each one hurt as much or worse
Than its neighbours.

Never gather them
Had been the refrain,
That she had ignored
Again and again,
And now the burden
Of this enormous tower,
Crushes her spirits
That give out in a breath,
Drawn one last time,
From beneath a mound
Of lifelong regrets.

This tidal wave that rushes in
Will carry with it on its way out,
A stray sandal and a beach towel.
The child who’s lost their belongings
Cries out as if to remonstrate,
A mirroring played out
For the benefit of no one.

Meanwhile what’s left behind
Seemingly untouched, perfectly intact –
The devastation of a broken shell
From the power of a far greater swell
Than what the ocean and his coy bride
Have birthed in this boisterous tide.

This moment is as universal
As it is uniquely personal,
It has landed in more than a billion ways
Across the breadth of human experience;
For some it will be a cherished slice of time
That they’ll carry within their hearts forever,
Others will have reasons to remember
This moment, that are not as pleasant,
And some will not detect its passage
As unremarkable as it is –
Yet, beyond the confines of the earth
It is but a single moment,
The same, and yet so different.

Perhaps it is that there comes a time
When your restless, activated mind,
Goes haywire in the relentless cycle
Of trying to make sense of everything.

Perhaps it is that at that time,
It stops circling round and round
Like a hamster in a wheel,
And finally listens to the sound
Of its own heartbreak.

Perhaps it is that at that time,
It comes painfully to realise,
The truth it had been staring at all along.

Every fibre of my being
Tells a story that is at odds
To what I’ve let on to the world,
And it is hard to exist in this state of dichotomy.

Wisdom cries aloud that there is relief
When the burden is cast down, or shared;
Yet there is also wisdom in protecting
What remains of my sacrosanct dignity.

For even the inviolable can be subject
To brute force attacks that defy norms,
And what is left in the wake of such as these,
Is a void – the word that rubs against an edge of this feeling.

I

I needed witnesses.
Wait a minute –
There were witnesses
Many of them
And they watched me
As I existed
In a state of utter shell shock,
Flabbergasted, dumbfounded,
All of that and more –
And they saw all of it unfold,
But my story, hasn’t been retold,
Not to me, and not to the world,
I had witnesses, yes,
But they were all devoid,
Of scruples, and of words.

II

I’ve built myself a room
Full of witnesses.
They are each ensconced
In earthern or plastic pots.
I stand back and look at them,
And for some reason, I’m pleased no end.
I needed witnesses,
And there are several now,
As there were then,
Just as silent,
Yet quietly observant,
And sheltering,
If nothing else.

III

I stand back and watch
My witnesses, with a touch of pride.
There is something to be said,
About watching something grow,
Even if contained, and not quite raw.
And then it hits me,
The sudden realisation –
They aren’t witnesses, are they?
For I have utter control,
On their wellbeing, their growth.
How could they not be,
But biased? Growing as they are,
Under what I’ve offered as shelter?
They would perish without a whisper
In a whisker
If I chose not to nurture.

Maybe it was the same
With the witnesses of yore.
Maybe they could not bear
To have the bond cut asunder,
Between them, and perpetrator.
Maybe that is how life unfolds –
When the witness becomes the attacker.