Wheel of Time

You wanted joy,
loved the sun—
that first time we met,
winter fog lay heavy
over a brittle day.
 
Rootless hours,
solitary and starved,
fell hard in love.
A timid heart,
wobbling at the edge of newness,
listening to fairy tales
of pleasure and pain,
carrying the weight
of experience not yet lived.
 
Winter slipped away.
If love were spring,
I wore it like powdered color—
we walked close,
down distant roads
in imagined cities,
through conversations
made only of silence.
 
Far out,
by the beach,
slums clung to the shore—
fishermen waiting in stillness,
nets bent like restless fish
in the pull of the tide.
 
There was too much—
too many wounds,
too much hunger.
We skipped the barriers,
trusting God
like a dare.
 
I thought love meant
laughter in the fields,
barefoot farmers tracing
narrow borders
toward the harvest.
But it wasn’t true.
 
That path—
just a crowd,
driven by rivalry
and self-importance,
faith drained to zero.
In spring I learned
I was a beggar,
a defector.
 
So I cut myself loose—
philosopher,
without possession,
fleeing into summer
with one small wish.
 
We’d promised partnership,
prepared for the life-machine,
vowed ourselves to the common future—
but before the road turned hot,
I looked beside me:
you were gone.
No sound.
 
Time kept walking.
From past to future,
a wind in the month of Baisakh
came one day,
carried away straws
and fragments—
made them private.
 
Then came the days of sweat,
the sky raw with light.
I kept myself for myself,
riding the back of the nor’wester
into a far-off country—
northward mind,
body surrendered
to a coolness.
 
Still, loving the sun,
joy sits smiling,
and I beside it.
 
After so long,
I walked the city streets again,
kept to the pavement,
passed the slums under the bridge,
and on the museum steps—
a fortune-teller.
 
I took the moment.
A quiet interval,
a pocket of time
to think straight,
to know myself cleanly.
 
Desire had burned through,
sin and virtue both asleep.
Following whim down the road to forever,
love drained itself into life.
 
Days will pass,
the scars will fade.
Dark clouds—
I haven’t seen them in years,
but now the monsoon is coming—
and the dammed-up cry
is pushing at the gates.