When, in the sand, I picked my way

In an endless search

For something I might have lost

While growing into my septuagenarian status,

I found that I never lost it.

It walked with me like a shadow

Although I never knew it.

It never set its feet before me,

But hid behind me

Waiting for me to turn-

Waiting for me to find it.

 

It was ME I had to find,

My Self – my being!

 

In the vagaries and bustle

Of a life that meandered

Through social nothings,

Pointless pursuits

Of the known and the unknown,

Tangled in baseless relations

And all the turmoils-

Both internal and external-

Of a war-torn world,

A society inked in race and class

And gargantuan cupidity

Polluted by a political miasma

That wafted in to sunder everything

Rather than link,

My Self hid as a permanent shadow.

 

Walking by the sea shore,

I was called back to my self;

All the broken shards

Of the nomadic mind

Collected themselves

In the sheer beauty

Of a color-drenched sunset,

The sparkling silvery waves

Laced with the froth and fizzle,

The pleated verdant fronds

And the cascading golden flowers

Of a languishing coconut tree,

In the seductive fragrance

Of a jasmine garland

In the braided hair of its nubile wearer,

In the silky unfurling of rose petals

In the bridal bouquet

And many more!

 

Cymbals and harps

Sang in unison

And bells clanged

In joyous clamor

Just to proclaim,

Myself.