A FLIGHT OF FRENZY

I sit and I wonder,

I hope and I dream,

I see in the sky and let its depth swallow me.

I lay still,

And the body lifeless;

But the mind,

Oh the mind is soaring, riding and galloping; on a stork, on a horse, on a ram, on a breeze,

On the wind of the spring and the waves of the seas.

 I soar up as an eagle and I see,

A trans world laid out in front of me.

My past, my present and my future all in plain sight.

I soar further up and I see,

Hills, valleys, mountains, gorges and trees.

Even though I fly up high in the sky I see clearly, the grounds with fields full of dandelions.

I stoop and I steer close to the ground and then I feel,

 This is no ordinary dream, it probably means something.

As I flew too close to the ground the gust of wind from my wings released a million flowers from the ground.

And the flowers soared up the sky.

It didn’t take me long to realise, I was flying on my thoughts.

For the petals with me were nothing but my thoughts and everything I had felt from fear to angst, from jealousy to love to sorrow pain happiness and laurels.

And then it hit me, I can stoop in a ravine, I can swim in the sea, I can walk on the water, I can climb up a tree, I can jump of a cliff and never fear dying for I am this world and this world is me.

As I continued my journey into this familiar uncharted territory, and went down the path in this seemingly known-unknown forest, soaring up with the wings of an eagle, swaying up and down in the wind, the vast expanse of the forest gave way to a clearing.

It was nothing much to look at and too good to stop the fun I was having yet something kept me drawing.

And out of curiosity I went down,

 I saw an old man with a crooked walking stick, and the night fell.

Down by a small fire he sat,

His face I could not see nor spoke the language he spoke.

Wanted to fly away yet couldn’t for the wind of my wings and the strength of my legs was with him now.

The old man used gestures and words long forgotten none of which registered or entered.

I clearly understood his last words though for he said he would not be here if I hadn’t wished it.

And with these last words he disintegrated in the wind.

Much to my joy came the crack of dawn and with it the wind of my wings and the strength of my legs.

And I flew up in the sky to explore further.

The new day had brought winds of change for the trees started shedding leaves as the winter was nigh.

Undaunted by these changes surrounding me,

I flew straight up to the sky so high, I could see all the paces the forest could be.

And I remembered this being a trans world of my life.

Then the selfish human behaviour took over and I decided to trick nature.

Cheat it and peek if not see into the future.

And hence armed with a trader’s sense and a logic which only a human can understand, I flew to cheat nature and ventured out to see my future.

As I flew over the forest, I saw it had started to show signs of autumn at its edges.

As I flew into the sun, I started to have visions of grandeur, pleasure and worldly desires, objects of comfort and leisure hours.

All these illusions,

 Thrilled my mind and filled it with enthusiasm,

But the journey was in vain and the destination an utter disappointment.

I reached there by the evening and through the dying rays of an already set sun I stood there in the twilight and stared upon my future.

My future was nothing but a barren tract of lifeless land, an endless patch of settled dust all the way up to horizon.

And I wondered, I wasted my time for this, “this”.

But with an undeterred spirit and the unwillingness to accept the shame of being made a fool of, I start running on this barren tract of land, hoping something somewhere will pop up and won’t let nature have the last laugh but all pointless.

After sometime I parched my throat and completely exhausted I broke, accepting defeat and it as a fool’s errand I decided to fly away.

Still pondering on what this meant with the wind on my face I kept flying and reached the familiar tract of forest painted green with brown at the edges.

But knowing no surprises in store I kept flying over the lush green expanse towards my past,

Curious of what form does it have.

The sight of my past was much more welcoming for it was a river with deep blue water and stones white as marble on its bed. I swooped down to enjoy the landscape but to my surprise noticed the river flowing upside.

Amazed by this laws defying river and its snow-white bed I decided to follow its path to see where it led. Flying a few feet above the river bed I could hear the water gashing the rocks and smoothening them.

I kept following the track and the landscape changed, the lush green forest with autumn at its edges gave way to hills, valleys and gorges but now without a single tree in sight.

I went flying upstream with the river as it climbed up a hill anxious as to what lay waiting on the leeward side as I reached the tip.

The leeward side was just as awkward as things had been since I first saw the river.

For the ascension that led to the tip was absent and all I could see was a cliff and the river falling off the cliff.

The river was falling into a vague representation of an artist’s unfinished painting, a colourless gathering of black and grey lines on a white canvas.

I swooped down and tried hard but couldn’t reach the oblivion.

Wiser this time by experiences afore I gave up this exercise in futility and flew back.

Unwilling to waste my time I turned back, up the cliff down the hill by the river over the bed back to the familiar patch of lush green forest with autumn at its edges.

Back in the forest painted green with brown at the edges I sat under a tree and wondered.

Still puzzled at all that I had seen and hoping to find a clue I ran these things back and forth in my head and pondered.

After a considerable amount of time I was still clueless.

Suddenly someone somewhere had pity and the meaning came to me.

The future is and will always be under construction for it has not been carved in stone for anyone on the face of this planet, the freedom of our choice changes it, shapes it, makes it and breaks it with every breath we take.

The past like the river has and is flowing out of our life, as to where it flows, is not a concern for us it is all but flowing out of our life with every passing moment.

And all we have is the present, a seemingly endless expanse of lush green forest if we will it and there will always be autumn around the edges.

                                                                                                                                          Anirudh Sathe