Myriad Reflections. Shastri Akella

Festival of light

The insatiable change in the moods of seasons,
The vivacious blend of ochre and azure across a pinched skyline,
Wind shedding accrued warmth to don the cloak of a demure chill,
I gingerly eye another festival of lights sashay towards my tumultuous world,
A plane of existence where primeval promises are relentlessly pursued,
Shattered hopes discarded, fresh ones procreated,
In keeping with the irrepressible human spirit,
Of trudging along the dust-laden roads of life despite the storms that inundate,
I ruefully conclude – my eyes ablaze with an ancient wilderness,
Yet again I shall rekindle my sainted web of fantasies,
Rather than set it ablaze,
For what is life without the whispers of impossible dreams,
That I hear – faint and distinct like the voice of specters,
As they hover in my mind whilst nimbly balancing in their ashen hands,
My delicately woven loom of nascent dreams,
And fledgling they are, those dreams of mine,
Despite an existence that rivals eternity,
For, a dream ages only with fructification,
Until then like an ungainly girl,
Who matures into ethereal beauty only when the mist of age floats over,
My dreams too, linger in the shadows of youth,
Ah! Who bespeaks of eternal youth as a benediction – I beg to disagree,
Again the authoritarian muse flogs my heart with haloed verses,
Supplicant hands write in response – words formed of the blood of a trembling heart,
And out of the patterns created by the window sill of frenzied grills,
I notice a rocket shoot into the thick of the night,
Dabbing the starkness of the higher echelons with a dazzling circle of light,
I shut my eyes and ruminate over that harbinger to the fast-burgeoning air of festivity,
And in a nimbus of spirited thoughts reconstruct,
With little threads of hope my drape of unfulfilled dreams,
A revisited antique with whose inauguration on the darkest night – that witnesses, the brightest festival of the year,
I anticipate a renewal in my lease with those ancient promises,
Pray heed my beseech for the renewal Oh fate,
Until the loom of dreams becomes a reality I may drape, my eyes sprinkled with a smile,
Again, who says reality is harsh –pray, which truth works universally for the speckled lot of mankind,
Ah! Do I hear the whispering, clandestine chatter of my specter-dreams,
As they loom with a greenish-violet halo within?