Tuesday, January 26, 2021

The Story of an Evening Walk


Fields stretch endlessly,
Meeting horizon
Bringing it closer.
Egrets and pond herons
At dusk.
Doing whatever they do,
On the fields.
The harvest is over.
Ground getting ready
For the next season,
Standing immersed in water.
Sky blue glistening on the ground,
A world turned upside-down.
Shades and layers of green,
Rising in varied textures,
To meet sky again.
An evening walk,
Encounters this world,
From the road;
From the other side-
Of a barbed wire fence.
Wondering,
Will an evening walk do,
To cross over?
What does it take
To pull down the fence?
What is some blood
On the arms and palms?
There was one who bled;
Who bore the pain of humanity
And was crucified.
Cannot an evening walk,
Take some of that pain?
And yet,
The mind is a strange machine.
It wants more roads,
With just the right mix,
Of concrete and rustic
Lest it becomes too urban-
But still needing,
The comfort of a laid out path
For the elevating evening walk.
Which never crosses over,
To the upside-down world
Of pond herons and egrets.
That justs sits there
Seemingly doing nothing;
Except of course inspire
Philosophy & poetry.
What does it take
For these worlds to merge?
A merging seems the 'answer',
When both call
In the same voice.
But the road no longer
Holds a song.
It's a flat note,
That the road wheezes out.
Sweeter seem the raucous cries
Of the egrets
And the staccato hoots
Of the pond herons.
The evening walk
Swells in indignation and anger
At the upside-down world.
Is it just going to sit there--
Looking pretty
And calling sweetly?
Shouldn't it show the way,
To reach it?
Seems the least it can do!
The black comedy
Of wanting a path again
For the evening to walk on....
To the world of egrets and herons.
So near, yet so far.
And it will be so.
For all paths
Are but habits of memory.
And all habits
Are but self-deception.
The evening walk,
Can wear itself out,
And plonk on the roadside.
Watching the upside-down world,
So near yet so far.
Sitting there, watching.
The evening walk
Is no longer the evening walk.
Because..... It's not walking any more.
Well, duh!
Empty now.
Not knowing what to make
Of this world or that,
Or itself;
Sitting there watching.
And getting angrier by the moment.
Until suddenly,
The wind catches something--
The faint strains of a melody.
Is that acceptance
Wrapping itself around the heart?
Is that acceptance
Whispering in the ear?
Is that acceptance-
Like the smell of fresh earth
rising after the rains?
Who knows
What the morning brings?
But for now,
There is acceptance.
The evening is content to burn,
With the sun.

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