The transient moment
when one conversation
is over, and I wait for the next,
searching for eyes that
might accidentally meet mine,
that transient moment
surrounded by faces –
smiling, welcoming,
I understand what alone means
for three seconds.
I go off to find the next.
They say shards are among
the things that cut
through your defenses
rending your castles futile.
Then why do we hold one
in our hands in our palms so unsteady?
Why are there shards all over,
some that cut through earthen lines,
some other through beating instruments?
We try to capture time
in vases, in glasses and bottles of wine
but it dries;
in prose scattered across words,
in notes and dimes,
but it flies.
We try to capture time,
in the ice cubes that melt
at the first touch of your palm,
in the sugar inside the
cheese cakes when we dine,
but it all ends up emptied
again and again.
We still try to capture time
in games of charades and
questions we’d never ask anyone,
in one word texts
nobody really understands;
in fears we try to drown
by denying the world made
by our very hands.
We try to capture time.
On days like these when the sand in the hourglass seems to be sliding faster than usual reminding you of how much of what remains to be done, let it not dishearten you, I tell myself, let is remind you of how far we’ve come.
There are days like these when turning pages seem the hardest most of all, when time flashes by as the to-dos of the expected life remain uncrossed,
On days overwhelmed by the possibilities the eyes can gaze through but afraid of the probabilities that play along,
When fear of the known chokes more, filling every vacant space,
On days like these,
Let us be.
Be with the wind as it erodes the flesh away,
flow with the river as it does since time immemorial,
Standing like a spectator between all of it.
On days like these,
Counting each second with hopes to slow it all down.
On days like these.
