A crowded world
Watched over by galaxies
Spinning away
Pushing the boundaries
Of space
Not content with
A comforting status quo
That many would like life to be
Viewed from afar
Multihued pixels
Paint the mountains, plains
Oceans, deserts and ice
From a moving
Watchtower in the sky
Trailed by white vapor
Drawings, on the stratosphere
Where the useful directions
Are up or down
Much like minds that float
In the world below
With much to thank for
A day may come
When hands from the East and West
Join in a worshipful stance
In awe of a living wonder
That human life is
An isolated accident
As far as our mind can tell
Accident or not
Here we are
Aspiring to remain
Top heavy sand clocks
Standing for ever
Knowing fully well
Shifting sands
Is everyone’s lot
Fickle hands
Shelter fate, which is
Nothing but the balance
Between giving and receiving
Carrying little meaning
When there is nothing to own
Even youth is a loan
That can never be repaid
Except by strong willed thoughts
Dropping anchor
Amidst a raging flow of
Unchecked desire
Threatening to outlive the sun
An evergreen companion
Standing like a lamppost lighting the way
Around a celestial velodrome
With fellow planets
In their own individual pursuits
All tied in by
Allegiance to the one sun
As far as the eye can see
The world is flat
The big picture is very different
If all the pixels are shown
Mostly confined
To a nebulous land
Reaching every corner
Of imagination
Propelled by cold hearted keys
Peering through space
Between zeros and ones
Which are the dominant species in this realm
Of truth, of which there are
Many pretenders to the throne
But in reality, it also runs through the veins
Of every serf there was
Who may have dug the ground
Beneath their tired feet
With bare knuckled hands
Indifferent to the knowledge
Of modern day surfers
Sitting on dry land
Having the world
At their fingertips
Dancing on alphabetized keys
That know everything about our lives
But as discreet butlers
Only show themselves when pressed
By hands that hold
Near, our wants and needs
Heavier the load
The more united the fingers are
Of not just one hand
But both, which can neither see nor hear
The pleas of the mind
Not to let go
Of the past
Filled with pixelated faces
Stored in the shuffled decks
Of memory vaults
Accessed through prayerful recall
To fill the darkness
With pleasing images
Whose pixels then fade like melting clouds
Struggling beggars
Borrowing and stealing
From one’s own treasure trove
To fill another’s bowl
Around which the hungry congregate
It is easy to satiate the body
With grains of rice
But bread for the mind is yet to be baked
In the fire of wisdom
Which melts trouble
That would otherwise be stuck
In an age old mold
Like a goldsmith turning
Molten gold into
An ornament that’s golden
Not just in name, but also form
Which the mind lacks
But uses the play of light
Turning fantasy into believable pixels
That five legs tirelessly run after
In a playground
Where thoughts are roused
From a desireless slumber
Which the playful willfully renounce
Chagrined by admonishments
From books predating
Every ancestor they ever knew
Hiding under a pretence
That everything’s real
In the everchanging
Amalgam of pixels
But lacking courage to exit the charade
To the worldly wise
What’s real is disappointingly simple
Like a three course meal
Lacking any flavor
As a fire that burns
Anything placed before it
Consciousness devours
Any efforts to understand it
Save for one who imagines
A single pixel housing a picture
Of everything
In the world and beyond
Pixelated faces
Of everyone who has
Come and gone
And dormant sons and daughters
Waiting to rise
And realize that
Consciousness is
Perpetual flywheel
That never tires
Of powering
The show of
Various forms and colors
In which pixelated faces
Are just that
Specks that disappear
When the screen changes
- N. Seshadri
