The passage of life

Life and to live has always been a mystery for me. Every year, I celebrate my birthday with friends and family, and feel happy about it. But it was on my eighteenth birthday that my consciousness asked me a question that knocked me hard. It asked me to explain my life and the eighteen years. Not in terms of success or studies, or wealth or grief, but in terms of the meaning of life.

Having failed to explain my own life, I struggled to write down the moment as it meant to me. But it took days, more difficult days, and finally one day, I wrapped up the fearful voyage in the dreadful world of emotions. By the time, I had a few lines ready to be shared.

This is the most beautiful poem I ever wrote as yet today, I discover a new self with its help. Seven years have passed by and I crave for it the way I did then. Welcome to the passage of life!

Meandering through, in pastime of the eternal sleep,

By sheer chance of the law, that gave me a creep,

Entrapped within the weird length of the passage,

Was welcomed with love, in a prevailing queerness.

High up, the blue giant, extended its caring arms,

But bewildered, stood I, with a feel of wariness.



On the carpet of roses, I could smell their bloom,

Laid heaped in a corner, my preserved heirloom.

Two steep marble cliffs, proud of their grandeur,

Had engraved on them, with hands blood-stained,

Rewards for the dead and epitaphs on who lived,

Beyond the gossamer veil, so through ages remained.



A primeval gallery, with profound paintings on show,

Limned by some splendid hands, marvels of the graffito.

I gazed upon each, my eyes kindles in excite,

For I could see the priming, of smiles, hopes and tears.

The pros and cons of the art, tossed deep in my mind,

As I witnessed, their own blood, a couple endears.



And a crowd of imposters, each had an edifice of hopes,

Headed petrified to the other end of knowing the ropes.

Pondering over the oddity of their own bizarre paintings,

For I could not see theirs, and neither they mine.

Some lolled for an instant, some kept their pace,

But none accompanied me, through all my lifetime.



Reading the ciphers, I’ve been through two short of twenty,

And as the next comes looming, I can relive a plenty.

Determined to face the muscle, in the murky road ahead,

Rich in verve and the paradise boons bestowed in a ray,

The ablazed crave to see more of the art, I tread ahead,

With hopes that the other end, lies still far far away.

(It took me days to record this vision in appropriate words. There were times, when I would fall short of words just because there was so much to describe. I finally completed it on 5 April, 2001.)