Miles roll by with time
Is there an end in sight?
If there is, what’s beyond?
There’s never an easy answer
If you ask of life
Where probing with words
Only pretends to plumb its depths
That is, if one isn’t afraid
Of what’s hidden
In the vineyards of the mind
Throwing up fruits
Ripening on the vine of life
The taste of which
Brings up surprises
Showing even robust plans as
Weak and shallow
Are not the words
That question the source
Of the wine that flows
In the paper cup
Fated to wrinkle with time
Despite great care
To reverse time worn wear
Not of the minute hand as the hour ends
A paper cup weakens with age
Unlike the wine that it holds
The world is brewed in thoughts
Entangled like a grapevine
Wandering nomads
Intoxicated for life
Seeking our attention
With tentacles of hope
Masters of disguise
Selling glimpses
We seek to own as masterpieces
Of art, as only a true connoisseur
Would understand
If there is one, not many
Who would be the admirer’s
Of the mind’s art?
A viewing of which
Relinquishes the stage
To the craver of fleeting tastes
Ushered in great haste
Through five gates
Without a lock and key
Open always are these unbolted doors
That take our freedom away
There’s the faithful
Amongst thoughts
Ceding to the greater good
Finding which is hard
As spotting a marked leaf
In a vineyard
A haven for most
Until the wine stops to flow
Into the paper cup
Soggy with age
A sad state
The only solace
Is wisdom that remains
Just out of reach
On ground that’s high and dry
In rarefied air
Still as maturing wine
In casks of oak
Where boredom cannot be feigned
And clouds of anguish are blown away
Revealing a true picture
Secretly sought by all
Who hold up paintings
Reflecting thoughts gone awry
Gathering steam
And creating a screen
Held in place
Within the walls of the paper cup
Rendering the wine that flows
Into mystical smoke
And organized into arcane language
That few interpret as such
A courier between generations
Carrying letters from
The master vintner
Who tastes through a million mouths
Bitter or sweet
The mind judges
What is happy or sad
Coloring the paper cup
Does not touch the wine
That never leaves
The vineyard of its birth
One is free to taste
If the attention is not at sea
Where the depths are dark
But full of life
Which is what thoughts are
Not designed to haunt
Or bring sadness
A teacher within
Also a guide and friend
Share the wine
Not the kind spirited away in cellars
Every thought is dipped in it
Hidden like rain drops
In a cloud
The wine flows when there is love
And not in deserts of hate
Where the view is a narrow one
The wide open spaces
And boring uniformity of the sand dunes
Would be a welcome sight
Would be a welcome sight
In the up and down world
Of a thoughtful mind
Busy as a marketplace
Where thoughts meet and greet
Dispelling fears of loneliness
That is just a myth
Propagated by the mind
Which seeks the world
Through its five slaves
Who whisper in the shadows
Longing for the days
Where the benevolent
Had set no limits on them
To see and hear
The glory of the freedom
Of the higher self
Now confined to hiding in plain sight
Every man is a mirror
Of one another
Why speak ill of one’s reflection?
Thoughts are greater than words or actions
Make them worthy of
Tasting the wine
Which flows whether there is good or evil
Its job is to animate forms
In this great drama of life
From the perspective of the master vintner
There is only one
But the wine of consciousness
Is drunk through millions of paper cups
That bodies are
To be discarded one day
Without realizing who we really are
- N. Seshadri
