A disease that defies investigation
Unless there is a loss, of expectation
Difficult to detect like a camouflaged spot
It isn’t through a microscopic agent that it's caught
The vector is the mind
That’s always caught in a bind
Traveling on wheels that spin faster than time
Setting up conditions that are prime
For an affliction with one symptom
That usually is never fearsome
Like a prophesy
It is immune to common courtesy
When the mind has spoken
The cure is broken
Incubated only in the lab of silence
And dispensed with an individual license
Pharmacies of the world may treat the common cold
Powerless against this disease, that could rust even gold
It’s spread has been viral
Made worse when one is idle
And is considered rich
Even the most suave ultimately collect only kitsch
In that milieu it becomes hard to step aside for the cure
That’s easily available for the mature
Who fearlessly dive
And are able to survive
With nothing more than their skin
Just the way it had first been
Each one’s anthill came later
Shaped from mud, everyone’s a proud creator
Of the make believe
Which only provides a temporary reprieve
Everything we know
Is an evanescent show
Morphism of five
That magically keeps us alive
Those five may one day dissolve into nothing
We are lucky they are still behaving
Waiting for every last one to embrace that cure
That will permanently insure
Against the rampage of sorrow
Joy will never again be postponed to tomorrow
When this is achieved
The magnificent five reveal how they deceive
Mud disappears in water
Which evaporates on fire’s altar
Which is dissipated by the wind
Roaming in space, it is ultimately thinned
The cure isn’t the body’s dissolution
That is nature’s solution
The mind that has turned to stone
Will have to be fully known
Before nature’s last word
That will ultimately cull our herd
Even a stone that’s hard and rough
Is smoothened by river waters that slowly buff
A rocky mind’s a desert bereft of love
Far away from the cure above
Trapped in a fleshy cage
It fossilizes with age
Such a mind is unmoved by anything but death
The kind that comes with cessation of breath
Even a trickle of love would suffice
If it’s associated with faint traces of sacrifice
There is little point in conniving
Together with time, in hope of surviving
The cage doors will one day open
Why be carried away dead and broken?
An inner cure may offer an alternative
But it’s methods are furtive
Those who have it, see with eyes and ears
But their mind operates on very different gears
Straddling the mundane with no disdain
They are true achievers who will always reign
No more a slave of the five states
Through which nature dictates
The cure is hastened by a diet that’s pure
Not the kind that is fed by manure
But from thoughts and reflections
That follow the right directions
Some of them are tried and tested to foster love
Free to fly anywhere like a peace dove
Always visible like the sun’s rays
Basking in them is surely life’s best phase
Wisdom tanned thoughts are best eaten raw
Pushed into the cold of the subconscious they may never thaw
Bulky produce from the mind’s fields
Will only offer worldly yields
That feed the hungry living in gilded cages
Where that disease that defies a cure rages
The world moves on steam
That comes from the inner stream
It’s waters quench the soul’s thirst
But one has to be healthy enough to remain submersed
The body cannot help, but it may hinder
It’s made an ally by not letting the mind splinter
Those sharp fragments may cut through steel
It’s the quality of the will when one gets off the wheel
That brings a lot and takes even more
Sapping one’s resolve, rendering life a big chore
A sad state of affairs
That won’t go unnoticed by our heirs
Who depend on us to vaccinate the future
Turning rough roads smoother
It is a great responsibility
To maintain nature’s virility
That is now sapped by warming waters
That don’t respect man made borders
Cooling the collective mind is a bigger task
Feverishly active behind a noble mask
The pill that needs to be swallowed just once
Is manufactured by one’s own conscience
It follows a common curriculum
That hasn’t wavered from the continuum
Maintained over the ages
Even as it shows the cure in stages
Injected with the vial of patience
Flr those afflicted with sorrow, the patients
The cure is immediate
If one is able to remediate
The fallacy of the times
Which is the failure to read between the lines
Of the script read out
By a mind struggling to regain its clout
It seeks an escape
Not through what’s squeezed out a grape
There is a door somewhere within
Where the healing can slowly begin
- N. Seshadri
