Nursing my secret longings
I lie awake in the wee hours of the night
Mind restless, like a caged bird, craving redemption
My thoughts journeying through time and space

I recognize a thousand appetites
Still waiting to be appeased!
Sadly there isn’t time enough
To realize what I really crave.

It is in the stillness of the night
When sleep deserts the eyes
That mind derails its track
And wanders like an aimless vagabond

Though rooted firmly on the ground
At times, I feel, I lose my bearings
How I longed to paint my sky
In garish colors and shades!
    
I wonder if the scales of my life’s balance
Lean more to gains or losses now!
There was a time when hope ruled the roost
And I heard love’s soft whispers all around!

Now I am unable to precisely tell
What my mind craves and pines
But this much I know for certain
I am becoming worn and old

Years have so quickly skipped past me
With youth and beauty sapped away
Leaving life an exhausted well
With the dregs remaining at the bottom

My eyesight has waned, the earlier lustre gone
My once supple knees have started to creak
And the muscles, begun to sag  
I feel as vulnerable as a foetus in the womb

Pain grows with years
As a smudge deepens into an erasable stain
I am no wizard to call back all that have left
But listen to their ‘long, melancholy, withdrawing roar’

No more springing steps
And a fast fading cortex
Still I stretch myself
To catch at Hope, winging away!