The Light

I walk down the forest path
The scent of moist mud in my nostrils
A chilled breeze tickles the twilit night
And strokes my face with whispered quietness

Glancing down the mossy way
I stroll, I wander, I wonder, I wander
I observe, I taste the wet night’s delight
The moon softly glows on the waxy forest floor

I am in the darkness. I see but faintly;
I smell, I taste, I hear, I feel, I hear
The things that around me manifest
In the lonely black.

And all at once I see a faint
But brighter than the moon’s silver paint
A pinprick, a flicker, a shimmer, a glow
It’s light.

Queer little flame, in the midst of the darkness
Spreading its light with no inhibition
It regales the night with its colourful empowerment
And lets me see myself.

I look in the warm relief of my eyes
Who have been freshly freed from blunt senility
They roll in jubilance and absorb the ecstasy
That to them has been gifted

I squirm with pleasure and transcendental delight
Nevermore will I be alone in the forests of the night
With the pinprick, the shimmer, the blessed almighty glow
The queer flame, the laughing spark, the closing door.

But the winds of fortune are evil to me
And they find among the leaves the squirming ecstasy
And seek to blow ever harder down the mossy way
I strolled, I wandered, I wondered, I fought.

The winds of change gush into my little world of peace
The queer flame tilts to the side
I cup it with my hands, savoring its presence
Trying to save it from its own frailty

My fingers are muslin, numb, nonexistent
The wind passes through them unfazed
I cry out in desperation and black hope
As the wind subdues the glow and kills it.

Gone is the light, gone with the wind,
As I walk down the forest’s corridor.
Its gift to existence it has decided to rescind.
I wander, but wonder no more.

~ Advait

(Who is the light?)