Hanging on by a thread
Of thoughts that will not shed
Burrowing in the depth
Of a mind of infinite breadth
The make believe is all too real
How else would one sustain that zeal?
To bring home the bread
Hunger for more is what one must dread
A storm rages
Unchecked for ages
But the sun shines anyway
Waiting for change get underway
Layers of knowledge melded together
Held together by an invisible tether
That bond is hard to break
When it has taken lifetimes to make
When assuming lordship over a sea
Whose open waters doesn’t make one free
There is much that swims underneath
Thoughts encased in a weatherbeaten sheath
Filling this breadbasket
Without heed for limited space in the casket
The harvest is postponed
Called fate, unless it is good it isn’t owned
Time in the present is always right
The past is sufficient to understand one’s current plight
Why clamor for more, when the warehouse is always full?
With so much to put away, one can only dream of a lull
Swimming in the same soup
Some minds rise, others droop
All that one is will be known
When consciousness is stripped to the bone
In this play of light
It is only the mighty that don’t fight
True identity is trapped in individual cages
While the debate amongst the great rages
The fire burns as long as the wood is there
What’s common place will soon become rare
All that one isn’t
Is displayed on the walls of this prison
The consciousness prompting the sense of being
Forgets to inform that everything is fleeting
It is an inconvenient truth
While one plucks the fruits of one’s youth
All that one is seems bitter and cold
When taken away from one’s gold
Is there safety in the form?
When it will one day be swept away in a dust storm
What is true isn’t commonly known
Even when one is fully grown
When the most precious link is finally broken
It may never be spoken
Time to find inner gold is here and now
But one is busy using that plough
Planting seeds that will never dry
Even as life’s waters evaporate making others cry
Bricks and blankets are what finite aspirations amount to
Time methodically extracts what is due
All that one is will not be hard to see
When the chains holding thought are set free
Why is everyone afraid of being nothing?
Even when misery never stops accruing
A simple enough thought
That is dismissed before it is caught
The inquest can never stop
For consciousness will never drop
Where can it depart to?
When it is cradled by what is true
What lies beyond that distant curtain
One cannot be certain
Grasping with five digits
What one finds are only evaporating bits
Within this breadbasket gold may be found
Everything that there is can be seen all around
Not for the ignorant clinging onto this bus
Who miss that stream of light animating all of us
Enslaved by thought
Total freedom can never be bought
Beyond time is the whole
But one must cede control
Over notions and memories
Which is the root of fear and worries
Where can they go?
They can only find expression in this show
Mind’s the engine for this molecular mountain
Hiding the bliss that is now a trapped fountain
Before one realizes the blue of the sky isn’t real
The conditioned mind has already sealed the deal
Once beautiful it may turn into a menace
Just ask those who have lost their peace
It hosts a drop that should suffice
To power this priceless device
While the inner searchlight illuminates
Life in even grander estates
Then the question of all that one is
Is no longer a cryptic quiz
- N. Seshadri
