I’ve felt it far more often
than I’ve seen it.
In the rustle of the leaves it’s resident, and the thunder over the
distant hills brings its euphony. The inchoate buds
issue its fragrance, and the sway of the windswept grass talks of its silent
jaunt.
On the loneliest of days has
its gentle warmth enwrapped me, and on the longest of nights has it kept me
awake wolfing on its moreish dreams or floating on its soothing waves towards
the shores of passion.
In the exalted promenades of
the secretive trees have I often sauntered after its footmarks in the wind,
guided on by invisible stars in the sky azure and white. Often have the ragged
rocks of the winding hills borne my weight in its winsome wake.
It has come to me when I stood
by the gurgling river on the banks of which a thousand epitaphs stand erect,
and in the shadows where it creeps silently into the soul.
It has come to me in the wind
that brings the adrift leaves in spring, on the shimmer of the shiny rocks that
blaze in the summer sun, and the chill of the winter air that reaches the
bones.
It reeks from the stygian
caves where bats dwell in blackness, and the fig trees from which well-fed
parakeets depart raucously.
And often with tearful eyes
and many a tingle in my fingers have I beheld its enormous marvel, sometimes
from the heights of the lofty cliffs where vultures soar, and the spiritous
depths of Jacob's Creek.
I have stood beneath the
long-leaved tree dropping her mahua and sought its meaning from the sands of
time. When it has cleaved the abyss of my heart with brilliant rays of light
even as shards of broken dreams lay scattered at my feet, I have asked
questions in the boudoir of my mind.
I have asked the moss-covered
lake and the banyan tree by the lonesome bight where the hushed swish of hornbills
pips the fragile silence.
But it has never shed its
silence while its taste lingers unabated.
Instead, it has weakened my
knees and strengthened my resolve, humbled my pride and enhanced my esteem,
made me live and made me die.
Blessed are the men who’ve
escaped the throes of this inexorable charm. But also how cursed they are, for
they know not the joy of the feeling that goes beyond the blight.
A feeling called ‘tiger’.
0 Comment "A Feeling Called 'Tiger'"
Post a Comment