A single flower I asked for -
a keepsake of your mesmeric beauty.
But you gave bunches of bliss
in myriad hues of yellows,
every bough beaming with heaven’s majestic smiles!

Fleeing from the shackles of yesterday,
trickling down to a catharsis
at the slender neck of the hourglass,
the golden grains dribble down
to create my present.

My days out-flowing
the forgottenness of the past
creating a newness
that explodes in every cell!

You woo me deep
into the ecstasy of your pristine chasteness...

where dry leaves of Aspen and Beech and Birch
sussurate to the music of a lazy breeze,

where Hummingbirds
**** in frenzy
nectar from the orange glees
of the flame-of-the-forest trees,

where Hawthorns
lure the breeze
to weave its vibrance
in their domes of green glory,

where shrunken streams
bask in their white pebbly flourish.

Like an enchantress,
you lure me to the depth of your
rapturous bliss!

To say farewell, my heart pains.
I leave a beat of my heart
to ramble with the roving breeze
perennially in your alluring meadows!

I was alone on this journey, I thought
till I realised the road was all along with me
hugging my feet to ease my steps
as I strode homeward.

We travelled together
like two lonely souls who met to become soulmates.

Me and the mystical road, we
kept travelling,
I, oblivious to the home I already reached!

Beneath the layers of smiles,
deep down,
we hide our real selves.

From lie to lie,
from pretence to pretence,
we camouflage our reality
with the stylish masks we wear,
whilst the monster behind the mask chuckles
hoodwinking a whole generation!

I watched the coal-black smoke
of the ancient chimney
as it chased a messianic dream
swirling up the smoggy expanse
to the freedom of the blue sky
for a lungful of sanity.

I watched the gloom
of the soot-smeared boy
in tattered khaki
as he longed for the dark wings of smoke
to take him on its pilgrimage to freedom.

Withered by the corrupting fumes of the chimney
he lay there.

With no hands to hold to the smoke
as it spiralled up,
with no breath to feel
the freedom of the azure sky,
he lay there.

Like a faint twig
feeding the wrath of a funeral pyre
he lay there!