Memory

Memory is my fading friend of millennial days transpired— faithful scribe and guardian who measured mercy and intent and gauged love’s joyful glint— yet never turned from rutted path when sorrow’s specter, tinged in mottled shades of gray and black, sought only to inveigh. Dissembled memories puzzle, viewed dimly from afar— where motes of recollection dust swirl in thoughtless disarray. I stepped within to query, asked what’s to be done, but rueful silence was the sole reply of ones not only deaf but mute. Then appeared a trove of treasured books, pages crisp and white, without a crease— gatherings firm, oblivious of age. I lightly touched the gilded words, their selfsame title: Wisdom: Gift of Time; the Author’s name was mine. I nodded, smiled and then withdrew aware at once of where I was, secure in all I knew. 1st Place, Portrait of a Poet, Gautami, Phookan