A view so close to the sun comes with a price
An envelope holding life is the sacrifice
Bleached like an orphaned bone
It isn’t a temperate zone
Locked into a committed orbit
Mighty planets surrounding it prohibit
An escape to cooler reaches
Amongst the plush earth’s natural riches
In a race to nowhere
It’s circular path isn’t a stair
That a Roman deity can climb
To the tune of a song with an eternal rhyme
Setting up the link between mankind and divine
Through an ancient bloodline
Of the messenger to the Gods
Standing at the Pantheon in one of the pods
Now in ruins
Where one cannot wash away sins
Tourists are the new crusaders
Shooting with cameras, they’re polite invaders
Who don’t speak the tongue of the messenger god
The current age has managed to defraud
With an evolving sense of the high and mighty
Every age has a new name for the almighty
A figment of the mind or the real deal
Whether one’s upright or crouched in a kneel
There isn’t an answer
Until wisdom blossoms like a flower
In a valley full of many
Linked by common botany
The chance is always alive
If one marches inwards to revive
The art of alchemy
Not the kind that science considers blasphemy
But the one that turns thoughts into gold
By breaking every rusty old mould
Thinking becomes like quicksilver
Properties of which resemble a true believer
Unattached and fluid
Contemporary with time, unlike an age old druid
Inner alchemy isn’t popular amongst the many
Who prefer the ease of having plenty
Once mind turns to gold
It can never be sold
When it sees eye to eye with only one
The concept of plurality is done
Strangely a trait of both the evil and the wise
Who are poles apart like truth and lies
Unlike the predictable spin of Mercury
True freedom rejects any notion of augury
A real alchemist attempts to dissolve the anchor
That ties one down to worldly rancor
It is made of a heavy mind
Breaking away from the usual orbit is maligned
Transmuting that force
Is an alchemist’s recourse
Steeped in age old tradition
Without any need for formal permission
This art is easy to master
If one can be one’s own pastor
Dispensing the sermon in the mind
Amongst thoughts that may be unkind
To refrain from causing harm
Or parade false charm
The ornament of character may be sculpted
When impurities are annihilated
Purity that is an alchemist’s dream
Once permanent, never runs out of steam
Just like the hot headed sun
Around which Mercury has forever spun
It bares it soul
Even as it endures the toll
Of being in the super heated front seat
While we have water to cool our feet
Honored with the name of an erstwhile God
It plods away without trace of a haughty nod
- N. Seshadri
