Night : black, cold and still.
Screams of silence so shrill
Ringing in my ears,
I walk beneath a starless sky.
Nary a breeze, whiff, or sigh.

I walk alone unseeing,
A weariness upon my being;
Each step a leaden weight.
I stumble and *****
For a path and a hope.

I descry afar a faint shimmer.
On the black canvass a red glimmer.
I set off, falling and rising.
The light multiplies as I draw near
And soft, strange whispers reach my ear.

A sea of flowers? A sea of fire?
Both. A sea of flowers of fire.
And a path in their midst leading
To an unearthly glow
Whence come the whispers low.

Delicate and terrible is the Fire Blossom.
It is beauty made fearsome,
Death wrought into the hem of life.
I walk along the path with care
Lest I end up in a fiery snare.

The whispers turn into voices,
whoops and laughs as people seem to rejoice.
Starved for company, I go tearing down the path
And seeing what lay before as in a waking sleep
I fall to my knees to bless the night and weep.

It is a market, inimitable in its splendour
With golden winged angels as vendors.
Not selling but bestowing.
Miracles and wonders as their wares,
there's joy, hope and life to spare.

People dancing with glee all around,
singing and making a merry sound.
The healed, the resurrected and the rejoined.
Their happiness and radiance beckons me,
And radiant I want to be.

Yet something stops me entering.
An unyielding, invisible screen barring
my path to those heavenly promises.
I cannot move forth into that light;
Behind and beside me, the quietus of the night.

Tears streaming down my face
I stand there, removed from that grace.
And as I stand and my heart aches
An angel looks at me, his head cocked.
And I know, I understand; I raise my fist and I knock.

Never noticed Time fly
Beautiful springs and autumns passed me by,
Fooling and goofing around with naive eyes
I didn't know how to whistle at twenty-five.

Life greeted me in a suit and a tie
And introduced you with a hue and a cry.
As lightning struck my heart, I swear I died.
And you were me and I was you till thirty-five.

You used to be beautiful as the sky.
Your fount of allure has run dry.
Your nagging has sapped my strength to be nigh.
You smothered my song at forty-five.

To mourn your demise I did try.
To be happy, I learned to live and let die.
Not giving a **** about wives and wifis,
I started whistling at fifty-five.

A dream to be everlasting
A love for the stars.
To be seen as spectacular
Above the ground,high and far.

So people may say
With awe and wonder,
A mortal and a mere man
Now resides above clouds and thunder.

Impatiently I search for a way
To be off this pulling earth.
To fly away into the ether,
Far from the cloying dearth.

No elegant fire balloons for me,
Too cumbrous, too slow.
I will plummet up like a rocket
As trumpets blare and bugles blow.

But only so far, only so far
Never to reach the stars.
Spectacular as the fireworks
And then as failed embers falling apart.

The night descends
draping a blanket of calm
over the cares of the day.
I lounge amidst those earthly stars-
the deciduous,flickering fireflies.

The wind meekly blows,
the night lies silent,expectant
like a child for a story
before it sinks its head in the pillow.
And so I bring out my flute.

And no mere flute,this of mine.
Carved of the finest ivory,
enchanted in the ages bygone,
this flute that can sway the heavens
acquiesces to be touched by my lips.

Touched by a whiff of melancholy,
the flute guides me to play.
It lends me one of its memories.
As my fingers dance nimbly,
the flute and I bring back a forgotten lay.

The song floats higher
and the Moon leans in to hear.
Memories take shape,music takes forms
and the people long past
walk and sing and live once more.

Among them shines one the brightest-
A boy of low birth,
a boy loving and shy,
tender-hearted and frail
yet a boy who never cried.

Many sorrows he has known
and even more deaths seen.
His father killed,sisters ravaged,
his mother and home lifeless.
Yet never a tear did he shed.

No living soul knew his pain;
no pitying glance thrown his way,
this little boy of innocent age
carried his heavy heart
till his hope-bereft eyes fell upon a flute.

This very same that I now hold
had become a companion to him
and cried in his stead.
All his torments poured out
like a flood into a tune.

The boy went on playing
while his mother's life ebbed.
The flute went on singing
even when the little fingers went cold,
Lamenting;drawing air from his very last breath.

Memories dissolve into the night
The people walk back to the past.
The flute and I play the lament still.
Serenity prevails within me,notwithstanding.
A curious serenity,with a touch of sorrow.

The Moon starts weeping
and sheds tears of twinkling stars.
I catch them in a crystal phial
and stopper it with a dewdrop;
a talisman to dispel my nights.

******

I spill a few drops every now and then.
Where they touch the earth,flowers bloom
that are tender and white and star-like,
that shine their radiance in the night.
People call them Elinthé,'Tears of the Moon'.

You stand there
On the verge of the cliff,
Hands clasped in supplication,
Forever looking to the horizon.

The cool breeze from the sea,
The warmth of the sun,
The music of the waves
Mean nought to you, young maiden.

Not to you the ostentation of the sun
In the morn and the even.
To you only the emerald star
That guides him home;

The star beneath which you grew,
Which saw you blossoming,
Which looked upon your love,
Which saw him departing.

Which has now become your hope,
Your beacon to guide him back.
Fuelled by your ardent love,
It now burns for you.

Of all the worthy men,
You chose one destined to roam,
Whose fate is greater than you twain,
Whose path leads beyond this Age.

He has gone whence he mayn't return,
Cursing his doom and his heart for her pain.
Even the good that will come should he succeed,
Would be vain to him without her.

But you do not fathom his plight,flower!
You do not understand why he needs do what he must.
You only know that he must and that he does
And that he has left for the unknown.

Oh!to bear in that tender *****
A burden greater than her wisdom!!
But you,oh simple maiden of white faith,
You will keep vigil through the Ages akin to a star.

Oh,these thoughts,these dreams!
flying every which way!
Taken in by the illusion of the horizon,
they try to lift us up,
To take us from our lowly abode
to touch the ever far sky,
believing it is possible.
The heart throbs in ignorance
with foolish optimism.
Sleep shies away from us not daring
to hinder those wild thoughts;
thoughts that whisper seductively,
thoughts that whisper treacherously,
That the stars are there for the taking
the moment we stretch out our hands,
That the sky is there waiting
to be painted upon with our names,
That the world is there eager
to lay down at our feet...
Foolish,arrogant,unruly thoughts.
No,better to curb them
before they take deeper root.
'Twould be better to rein them in
before they run loose.
Or would it?