Walking on this rock
That’s bound time in a lock
New shoes carelessly stomp on the archaic
Forgetting life thus far has been far from prosaic
Living in time’s good books for a generation
Is not a permanent foundation
The old and new meet everyday
A reminder, one’s time will decay
Time does not delay
It has no fears to allay
Part of the life’s bedrock
It cannot be stopped with sweet talk
The clock may run slow
If the mind does not stow
Thoughts of a kind
That surreptitiously bind
Perhaps as old as time itself
Making a leap into our embodied self
The history of thought
Is rarely sought
Our existence, anchored in the beginning of time
Which seems to never goes past its prime
There is always the present
Unlike the past, no need to make it pleasant
Because its nature is amiable
It is the only time when the mind can be made flexible
Accommodating a course change in a flash
If one’s unafraid of memory’s backlash
Time erodes everything but pride
Which tries to stem the passing tide
Holding on with the ropes of fear
To everything that is dear
Many arrows are shot into the dark
Most miss their mark
Not if they travel alongside time
That does not signal its arrival with a chime
A sound that is a constant reminder to man
About his ever shrinking span
Going from time bound to timeless
Cannot be attained by acts of largesse
The hour hand steadily marches on
Few make it past dawn
As the clock face snickers
The wise continue to be relentless diggers
With a sense of urgency
About the impending calamity
Of the mind slipping back
Into a role of an unsavory hack
By greasing the wheel of mind’s evolution
Through ideas that may at times seem Confucian
They gather many generations worth in one bag
Through intuitive imputing without a time lag
Lost in the box of logic
One fails to understand that magic
Time slaves we become
And one day meekly succumb
To a horseman that never fails to show
When his clock tells him so
Giving no time to sort what to take and leave
Leaving much behind to those who may grieve
Letting go at that unexpected moment
A thought that now seems abhorrent
But every time one looks at a watch
It comes closer by a notch
Time’s purpose is served
When passing of the torch is preserved
From one generation to the next
Our time is now, procrastination thrives on pretext
The span allotted is sufficient
If the mind is efficient
In its daily housekeeping chores
While studying transcendental mores
Which lead to a timeless essence
That never falls into obsolescence
Its members continue to grow
But at a pace that’s glacially slow
Modernity leaves little time to trek amongst those thoughts
The mind’s few remaining blissful spots
Planted in an age before our time
None can claim them as mine
A resource available to all
Who care to scale the inner wall
Life on the other side
Does not coexist with pride
One is spared the sight of a clock dangling above
Allowing unlimited time to be lost in love
A rapture in that moment
Transcends a clock’s steady movement
Reaching the timeless shore is possible
If the mind is agreeable
But it is the emperor of our time
And cannot be convinced of a position more sublime
It is hard to slip in and out of its golden gate
Where fearsome guards await
Stone faced and loyal
Guarding the time bound royal
Who wins obedience through reward
Generously disbursing his hoard
There is enough to outlast him
That treasury is always filled to the brim
Time cannot be bought
That makes the rich distraught
They are busy avoiding penury
As their skin turns leathery
Beaten hide covers new shoes
That the new arrivals choose
The clock starts afresh for them
As they listen to time’s old anthem
- N. Seshadri
