By: Vaisakh E. Hari

I walked carefree and gay,
Through the grass, mountains and plains,
Chasing after the secret,
The surreal beauty all around,
Testament to the divine power.
I watched the seeds sprout into the sky,
Warmed and fed by a crooning mother,
nourished by the tears of joy,
spilling forth from heaven.
And i search for the truth.
I sang under the sun,
slept under the moon,
Listened to the wind, the tides and the rain,
Rested on my mother’s lap and nothing was wanting.
I rested and rested,
nestling in the safety,
Here nothing could hurt me.
I slept too long perhaps,
for the summer had started snowing,
and darkness descended.
The snow was of a reddish hue,
Seeping back into the mother’s womb,
where the mocking birds sang not.
My melodies echoed dully off the trees and mountains,
a steady rhythm with the screams and cries,
disembodied from the sky and earth.
A lonesome wail resonated in my heart,
And still I search for the truth.
Melodic whispering of the leaves,
singing of tales untold,
had reduced to mournful creaks in the wind.
What was once flat,
was now round.
Who was once the servant,
Humbly kneeling with heat and light,
now a king of power,
princes now pawns in the fields.
The queen remained so,
high up in the sky palace,
waiting with bated breath,
for a love who never came.
And still i search for the truth.
I kept going,
Through the mountains,
through the glades,
hoping in every breath,
the next would herald a new dawn.
The screams were moving closer,
I ended up in front of a beautiful cathedral,
Exotic flowers around,
Gently swaying to an infinite rhythm.
And i walked in,
Heads down and humble,
To an immortal master composer.
But the inside was bare,
ominous to my heart,
And there sat but two men,
surrounded on either side,
by men fighting,
killing and dying,
laughing and crying,
shouting and moaning,
for here the grass was red and the sky was dark.
IN the midst of it all,
sat the two entirely at peace,
as i learned with shock,
One had no eyes,
Other had no ears.
The deaf wanted the sound,
The blind wanted the light.
In the midst of this mindless slaying,
My illusion shattered,
Lights dimming into faint lines,
The songs running slowly away from me.
The flat was really round,
And i was back where i began,
A new age, a new dawn.
In a lake still as crystal,
My reflection leered,
Disfigured and incomplete,
Unfinished and unadorned,
(Or was it ripples unseen?).
And still I search for the truth,
for who are we,
but the blind led by the blind,
and the deaf,
led by the deaf.