Saturday, June 1, 2024

The sage dispelling haze

 

Lynched by life’s rage,

All puzzled, shaky

and in the grip of debilitating daze,

I run around

and seek the help of a sage

living in a hut in the hills,

where many throng to get spiritual pills

after failures with materialistic bills.

The ascetic is all joy,

Says, come my beaten, bruised boy,

I tell him the story of my woes,

Show the empty rows

where I planted loving, caring seeds,

But ‘their’—the others—unfaithful deeds

undid my loving labor’s creeds.

Seeing me all lost,

smiled the kind host,

Gently he took me to a place,

Aha, paradise in full embrace,

Such a heavenly brace,

Trees, hills and sky’s blue,--

Nature’s pristine hue,

The beauty was spread out there

like an otherworldly layer,

Joyfully lit my eyes

far away from painful cries.

Then he pinched my earlobe,

Winced I with pain and sob,

The beauty instantly vanished,

All joy banished,

Though it was there still,

But I lost it due to my bitter pill.

Says the kindly sage,

dispelling my illusions and haze:

Other people and situations just are

as they are here and far,

We are primarily at war

with our self own,

The seeds that are sown

within our own self

decide fruits, crops and pelf.

Gently reminds me the sage,

softly turning wisdom’s page,

Long before others cause us pain,

the prickly seed has already lain

within us for a long time,

The externals merely chime

with the seed’s potential prime,

How will you get sweetness from a lime?

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