Atmakranti

Whispers of the shadows,
music to the lost yet breathing,
the endless days and nights as
if a mere count on the fingers,
the time has come to embrace
the eternal

Shadows tread on the path unknown, bereft of its body as soon as the raging light is lit on the pyre. These shadows once high and mighty walked the earth with their presence itself the end and beginning of everything. Today, after ages of silent breath and indelible deeds that have left a mark on mankind, all that remains is empty shadows emerging from the raging light.

Through and past the tear-ridden crowd the shadows cavort on the moonlit waves of the river of life, as if one with the tranquil brilliance away from all the sorrow that comes with death. Though unseen and unknown in the dark of the night, the shadows embrace the obscure yet full light of the moon to which those alive are blind. Stars reveal themselves to the shadows marking a new beginning in the dead of night.

Thinkers, scholars, poets, saints and priests — all without exception have sought the end of ends where today the shadows stand in glee. The torment of the physical self has become a distant memory of nothingness, and the cosmic self of unparalleled force dances on the moonlit waves. Following the trail of the tranquil brilliance of the moon on the endless waves the shadows strive towards the horizon, where awaits the stars that define infinity to both the poetic and ordinary eyes.

Once a woman as beautiful as the majestic night sky of the hills and rivers held hands, pressed her vivacious eyes upon those lifeless, and her laugh joyous enough to break stone-hearts that wage war among men. She held the world in her tender fist transcending the sinews and roars of lions, conquerors and kings.

When alive something meant everything when she allayed the tortured heart with her kiss of divine. The aches of the physical self, and delusions of the indefinite mind seemed bearable, even comfort when she sat beside with her feet touching the cool river on which the shadows today tread guided by the moonlight.

Being a shadow among shadows who have shed all matter, the only memory that lives and breathes in the thought to be nothingness under the stars is this woman I once held hands and pressed my eyes with. Though a shadow whose source is the ceaselessly burning pyre I stand still and give a last gaze to that woman who knew me both in life and in death.

As a child I had been loved by my mother and emboldened by my father, who shed tears like a cascading waterfall in front of the pyre of end and beginnings. The distant lands they took me to, and the lessons they taught hold for naught for this shadowy self yet the joy imbued with affection they showered on me from birth till last breath swirls about me not as memory but eternity.

A friend with whom I shared days of humor and frolic stands still with gaze affixed on the pyre. His face as blank as his lips are speechless. There were those times when we crawled through pipes, flew kites and played games of our own invention. The laughter that rents the monotony of the old and broken still rings in a corner of my shadowy self as I glimpse his lost face.

A friend, a lover and a son being the roles I played for a while with the world as a stage, and the infinite as the audience. As I pace towards the horizon, the closer I get with the shadows about on the moonlit path of the waves I realize my life itself had been the workings of the eternal that defines all phenomenon whether the universe or the world beneath the river on which I tread.

A priest who had known me since birth sings songs as stories of the gods who were once mortals striving to lift from the mire of worldly afflictions. The gods were none other than this shadowy self of mine who had become one with the horizon towards which I pick up pace at every passing hour.

The songs punctuated with wails of piercing cries of those who had loved and cherished my breathing flesh. A million tears trickle and flow into the moonlit river, enriching its waters with memories of my once breathing self. I know not what will happen of my shadowy self, and what the horizon holds but, all that I have left behind lives on even after the moon is lost to the light of the sun, and the skies a mix of crimson, azure blue and gold.