It began early but in those days bleak
College, late teen, taught stupidity
That vocation they wished for me
Ere I found ways an’ chose to keep
So I trained for that I wished no part
At noons droning, sultry and hot
Meanings empty, drummed tall
Hopes detailed in abuzz halls
Logic, sciences, cures supposed
Lures promised of career before…
Then it was I’d let all pass
Sensing apart, nebulous
Through the pain plain
And crassery obvious.
…
It resolved next over long years
Under several keen-eyed Masters
Watching, prompting, allaying fears
In texts I read, the words they spoke
The women I kissed and drinks I stole
And in the temples I sat with weed
A pregnant heart and smoking need
Poised, unclear, primed high, slow
Amidst sights that hid the core
With life curating in my thrall
Sans money, its raised walls
Secreted egos it bade on call
Definitions heaped on a newborn
Unaware, dreaming murmurs soft :
On rainbow drift of yet one love
Hours, days and years passed
Freedom clenched of love fast
While I lived and earned just
A bit more, with a tiny plus
Content to walk in own spirit
Hands linked in troubled company
But in step and concurring
Trusting, beautiful, unworldly
With the unreal and its reality
Peace in disquiet, witnessing
Same being one and its fields :
Matter, mind and I within
Nature, powers fomenting
Hunger, laws, and drives cyclic
Then sleep empty, blissful clean
And dreams spun out of within
And the waking … happy or mean
Chuckling life’s huhs, sighing entirety :
Vanity fairs, deserted galleries
Burning days, moonlit oasis…
₹ $ & @
— to be continued —