Weathered of snows and rains and smokes and fires,
Veteran of storms and gales and floods and squalls,
Seasoned of winters and summers and frosts and thaws,
The tired tree, unflagging, rests not.

Stripped of twigs, bark, and even limbs to dry for fueling men’s fires,
Leaves inhaled by ants and the young of every moth and butterfly,
Sweet sap, sylvan life’s blood, drained to gild the breakfast plate,
The giving tree, robbed, remains no less generous.

Gnawed alive by armies of tunneling insects in their divisions,
Bark scored and gouged with signs and graffiti and lover’s initials,
The heart of the forest smiles, the woodland holds no grudges,
The dying tree, patient and immortal, grows on.

My freedom will be in this light
In this light!
Freedom in these strands of grass
In this tiny particles of dust
Oh in this enchanting play
Of the mind and the body
I lose myself!
In the notes of this
Melody
And its Radiant songs
My freedom floats above
Oh my freedom
You are only in
The midst of the
Minds of everyone
In the difficult tasks
Where I do leave
All my sorrows
And worries of danger
Far behind
Oh does burn
The sacred sacrificial
Yajna fire
Rich with the
Eagerness of self sacrifice
In the heavenly abode
Of the one
Who holds this world!
O let me sacrifice this life
In the quest
Of this golden freedom
My freedom will be
In this light!

When I was traveling in the train,
With no strain on my brain,
Only peeping through the window,
To have a look of nature.

The flying birds, the grazing cows,
The race of trees in opposite direction,
The green green fields, the great mountains,
Lovely ponds and walking rivers.

The muddy huts and the children playing,
That was all that I could see,
My soul went somewhere else,
And I was thinking, what is life?

The gift of God, or the curse of devil,
Life is to enjoy or to suffer,
Many answers floated in my mind,
But the journey finished with answers incomplete.

Thereafter, I bombarded this question,
to each and every person I met.
A philosopher told, Life is sorrow,
A Scientist told, it’s an invention.

It’s a game answered the player.
No, it is a play, told the actor.
I went to a sage to get the answer,
Devotion is life, I was told.

Life is an ambition and dream,
Answered rich and cultured youth,
But the other youth not agreed,
Because he believes, it’s struggle.

Life is a chance, said the gambler,
No, its dance of happiness and pain,
Answered the classical dancer,
No, Life is Renovation, told the Archeologist.

Life is knowledge, said the teacher.
Life is thought, said the thinker.
“Life is a matter of self realization”,
It cannot be defined, defined the absent minded professor.

I met a roadside preacher,
That’s poor little creature,
Totally filled with confusion,
Said, ‘Life is an illusion’.

I asked this question to the driver,
Who picks me daily for the school?
He said, Life is like a bus,
Running on the roads of time.

So many answers, all were right,
But all were somewhat incomplete.
So it was difficult to compile,
And get the answer as a whole.

I keep on thinking all the time,
Deriving the answers as solving equations.
At last, I concluded as a whole,
That Life is Hope and Hope is Life.

That you grow strong and tall
keeping your child-like spirit
your heart filled with love and wonder,
I wish
That you have music and good times
That you are loved and cherished
I wish that sunshine fill your days
And peaceful dreams the nights
I wish for you to know your beauty
And your worth...

But now, mostly I wish
you were still with us,
my beautiful son.