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A Malady

The proverbial all pervading calm and inner peace,
Stability is what we choose to call it- to earn greens,
To eat them, to share it or to control it. So escapable
Yet, always avoided. The veil of contentment ever
So fallible.

Moving from thatched roofs to brick and mortar,
Crawling from unleavened bread to croissant and
From the hard cold ground to the fluffy bed of roses-
We cry, we try, we fall and we die, but then there's 
This small moment of rise.

Unseen, often unfelt, unknown and yet mildly present.
The only pure drop of human essence that is- but a drop;
Yet, if embraced it presents enlightened apes with wings to
Soar beyond the cutlery and the bed and diamonds and
Roofs. Its there but never yet...

Why do I the naive poet type my verses on this machine?
Why does the rickshaw puller not opt to buy a higher 
Mechanism of sustenance? Why do you think of conquering
The space while the same increases in light years between us?
Where is that drop? That essence of intended genetics?

Or maybe intended is what we make of it. Individual freedom
And the consequent 'progress' or digress. A place where graffiti
Almost topples the la politica and, deaths of millions and voices
Of the troubled are channeled like the AM frequency. A drop to
Each one of you dear mortals!

Breathing free sans the fear of someone at the door, sleeping
In peace sans the unrest within, listening to the wind without
A play button to press and walking the muddied path without
The cacophony of horns. Some of the things we inherently want
When the body is born naked.

Then? We grow up and down and up again like a spiral. A 
Careful reduction of the equation that wasnt meant to be a
Circumspect effort. I equals to human so you equal to?
Oh wait! There's a square root on top... Tough luck child.
That drop is there somewhere but we are reduced.

We grow up but never grow back!


 © Malyaban Lahiri

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