Take me to Vienna where the music walks.
Where the buildings invite you to sit,
And accompany them for a cup of melange.
Where the many palace gardens have jovial pique-niques,
With their bikes resting by the trees.

Take me to Vienna where life ebbs out
Where the past lives on,
And composers wave out the windows.

Take me to Klimt's golden city,
The city where even the grey Donau is welcoming.
Take me to Vienna and don't take me back.

The candle on the window was a-flickering,
Struggling to draw its light from the waning moon,
With the flames, the east wind was playing,
There as her proud vanguard, already waiting.

The crone herself had arrived at last,
With the clouds promising rain ******* her heels,
Those clouds were mimicking the sharp waves of her stormy hair,
And the spirits were all dancing with the thinning veil.

All raised their glasses to welcome the crone,
All revered the dark mother, whose might could never be surpassed.
They all knew that now they could reap what they had sown,
And sit by the hearth as the winds howled past.

The man on the moon was busy that day,
With all the preparations underway,
For it was the one day his neighbors would pay him attention.
His home would be more interesting than a constellation,
For it was the day of the occultation.

Ever since the moon landing,
            And since his poor soul opted for hiding,
The celestial man had been planning his big reveal,
To show the world that he, indeed, existed,
And was willing to be befriended.

What better day could he have chosen,
Than the day of the eclipse.
The day in which the most earthling eyes would be pointing the natural satellite.
The ever present, but not always visible ball in white.
That day it would be red and ******.
The planet’s one and only kite.

So the man in the moon prepared signs,
Meticulously home-made and home-drawn every single one.
He had been studying human languages and was fascinated by them,
He would be greeting the earthlings in 6500 different tongues,
And didn’t forget to do little drawings on the sides.

About an hour too early he had finished decorating,
So he took his folding chair and tray of food,
He brought his moon pie, moon cakes, and some local cheese,
He also brought some moon flower tea for drinking.
Then he started waiting, waiting until his home turned red.

When the time came,
He remembered,
He had forgotten the most essential of his supplies,
And as the humans started looking,
He ran home to get his telescope.
He wanted humans to see him of course,
But he also wished to see realization dawning on faces on earth all around.
In his panic, on his way, he knocked all decorations down to the ground.
Trying to desperately locate his telescope,
He spent a few too many hours away from his post.

When he finally returned to his folding chair,
Accompanied by his telescope,
The moon was red no more,
And all the humans had gone to sleep,
So he bowed his head and dropped his eyes,
But as he was about to go back to his house in the skies,
He caught, through his telescope, a glimpse of a human,
Dreamily looking at the heavens,
Who had stayed up, even after the eclipse was over,
Because that young human didn’t care that the spectacle had ended,
But loved the sight of the moon all the time.

The man on the moon went to bed joyful that night,
For he had made an earthling friend,
Who would look lovingly at the moon,
Even when it wasn’t red,
Who found the moon wonderful and interesting,
Even in its everyday self.

As I was climbing the steps,
Today after school…
I felt a pang of claustrophobia,
Despite being outdoors…
As I watched the herd of students in uniform,
Both in clothing and in conversation…
I felt scared.

Because I was a part of that herd.
One which mindlessly spent its days,
Spent,
In accordance to the routines of the society,
Their personalities among other things.

All those kids,
In preparation for standardized tests,
Had become standardized as well…

They were forced to fit a mold,
For so long, that they didn’t have to be forced anymore,
And it had all happened so quickly, just like the way mold covers food,
And it had come to seem so permanent, just like patina covering brass,
Hiding the quirks and the character of the statue for all eyes to see, through corrupting it.
They had turned fit to false ideals.

The stair was full of black coats,
As if to make the uniforms even more uniform.

And even the rare spring-like winter day,
Hadn’t made me want to break the routine that day,
To run away into a field
(If I could find a field in the concrete jungle,
The one that I hadn’t yearned to desert just yet,
Though I should’ve made any place my field, anyways.)
And to dance & lie among wild flowers,
Each one unique and not uniform at all.
Even the trees around the stairs looked one and the same,
But how could the system curb even,
The one thing supposed to be unrestrainable,
The uncurbably roaring nature,
To bend it in its will against diversity.
Just like it had done to us…

But then I saw kids playing in the soccer field,
Not a field of flowers, but a field nevertheless
They did seem to be thinking differently,
Their laughs didn’t resemble each other’s
So it was growing up which had made us like that,
A premature maturity,
Which would be premature even at the age of eighty,
(If it could even be considered maturity)
Which had stripped away our individuality,
And had made us a homogeneous flood, sweeping away all identity

And I still am a captive of the desperation that had taken a hold of me in that brief glance,
I still don’t know what to do,
Humanity, help me,
Aid me in melting these cages,
Through the heat of the stars presents in your minds as well as your hearts,
To recover individuality.

For I refuse to give up,
And to loose myself in the flood

I am the lover of the stars, flowers, and the wind,
I desperately love the highest mountain,
Just like the way I love the core of the earth.
I love all things with their energy, concerns, and occupations,
After the fashion of my love of raging rivers.
I love the dawn & the dusk equally,
As I love the tortoise and the hare,
The unknown and the known similarly.
After all, the bindweed is found as beautiful when compared to the rose,
And all things deserve my love, which they certainly get,
Solely for existing.

I hate results,
Consequences are better...
Studies are fun,
When the findings don't matter...

For consequences postpone finalization,
And keep the story unfolding...
When research continues,
Things to be learned become never-ending...

Progress is birthed by process,
That's why it's the journey that counts...
Rigid conclusions are dead ends,
Cages which nothing new surmounts...

The happenings on the way,
Outweigh the destination...
Everybody remembers what took place during the holiday,
But not the moment one reenters their houses after a vacation...

When one disregards the ways things come to be,
It's frighteningly easy to become careless...
One might stop fighting for what's right,
And doing things properly becomes meaningless...

It also keeps (s)he who overlooks from enjoying the little things,
From appreciating dainty flowers and enjoying the fiery waves...
It makes one numb, and that is the worst of all,
For nothing alse matters but the moments and companions before we reach our graves...

When we die, then we die,
Nothing more is to come...
Death is the most empty part of our lives (if it is indeed a part of it)
So really it is none of our concern to consider life's outcome...

We should try to live for the moment and the moments after,
Just make sure it's not death for which we strive...
So let us not live for death,
But rather for life...

O, the golden fields calling me,
The fields inviting me to run through them.
The newly cropped fields with their neigbor,
A lake of lilac.
Smelling of a fresh summer morning.

I shall sprint through you,
Singing at the top of my lungs,
Until I reach the shadow mountains on the other side,

I shall climb your sparse trees,
Swing from the larger ones,
And hug the smallers.

And I shall gaze into the depths of the lake a-near.
Its stiff surface lazily swaying
Glimmering like the most precious gem of them all.

And when I tire late at afternoon,
I shall, content, watch the clouds above you,
Against a backdrop of azure blue.