Searching love in the ruins
The figure solitary, bent with age,
Searches love in desolate ruins,
A persistent but futile gesture,
As love has grown these days ---
The most elusive commodity
On the stock-exchange,
Not reflected on SENSEX or Dow Jones
The hopeless quest continues,
Of the frail figure,
Wandering amidst the ruins,
On a wintry night ringed by a pale moon,
The desperate one, relentless in the quest,
Searches for every bit of evidence of love
That was once there and is not,
The pathetic searcher stumbles and gets up bruised
By the hawthorns, scattered in the remains,
Of the human relationships, now over weeded and overgrown,
Pauses in the aching longing for a gentle touch
And---
Strains to hear the faint sounds coming from
The bushes behind the wilderness rolling down
To the broad-bosomed riverfront,
The lonely glimmering haunts,
Full of echoes from the past,
Illuminated and wreathed with milky layers
Streaming from a clear sky, devoid of stars
But, hark,
The startled eyes see only
The phantoms and the silhouettes,
Arising and dancing in the ruins,
The ghosts from a receding void,
Very much like the mirage of a
Glittering desert. Stretched out
Only the illusion prevails these days;
The solid substance is forever gone.
