Sometimes I wonder if any fine thing in life is enduring?
I have seen men of resplendent promise die
In the ravishing bloom of their youth;
I have seen great leaders of spirit
Obscured by patina of time.
History has buried magnificent artists,
And noble men disappear from man’s thin memory.
Man’s power is a twinkle in God’s mood.
The glory of wealth can be grayed over
By one stubborn nasty stretch of market.
Political power snuffed out by a wicked election.
Popularity is a rickety pedestal
That can turn slippery with one scandal,
Or falling out of fashion.
Human body is a fragile gift of nature
That can crumble with one disease.
I have seen revolutions of just causes
Suffocated by inertia and ignorance of masses,
Choked to death by brute power of the elite.
Everything in life seems to be temporary,
Except the stupidity of man.
Why are we trying to make grand edifices on a bridge,
Why are we trying to change life to what it is not?
God’s vision is written on every micro-event of life.
But grandeur of man’s spirit glows in the infinite layers of time.
I often walk the evergreen path down the hill,
Which in each season wears a magical costume.
Tulips in spring raise their natty heads in solemn dignity
And the aristocratic aloofness of roses frames their iconic beauty.
The charismatic presence of a weeping elm seduces silently.
If there is any permanence in life, it is in these.
After the day’s brutality we are soothed
By the delicate caresses of the evening,
Sublimating into the nirvana of the night.
In the evening we want to jettison the crassness of our ego
And the vulgarities of the world –
But we want to invite the charioteers of the spirit.
Art of living is in how we spend our evenings.
Let us usher in beautiful women to talk with
(Men are obsessed with their bodies,
Never exploring the sublimity of their spirits)
And bring smooth wine to galvanize our mood.
Let music embellish an inspired moment of life.
Let us smell the fragrance of earth
And absorb the romance of the Milky Way on horizon –
Let us dream for a while.
An evening is an hour of beauty,
Our connection with eternity.
It is the consummation of human consciousness
With all that is and that can be.
Life is temporary
But the beauty of God is infinite.
Sometimes I think the poetry of human heart will never die.
