Wave of Despair

a poem by Charishma Jaikishin Ramchandani

There comes a moment in life
Like a ripple on a calm bed of waves
In life, how much you’ve strived
Of what use has been all your sacrifice?

Constantly on the run,
You missed life’s little moments of fun.
‘Sacrifice’ was your key word,
Beyond it, nothing you’d accept or hear.

You wanted to achieve more and more,
Day and night you slogged, to the core.
You always wiped away people’s tears,
Filling their lives with countless cheers!

Now days and months have glided by,
And suddenly on the past you cast an eye
Lost deep in thoughts
While some distant clock ticks by.

Words ring out loud in your mind-
‘What have you got,
What have you lost’?
You conquered the unconquerable,
Yet why are you feeling challenged and conquered?
‘Are you a happy and satisfied winner,
Or happiness and satisfaction you yet have to win’?

Now a man at eighty,
You feel like a little bird
Spreading its wings,
Trying to fly in a clear blue sky…
You didn’t even take off
And how soon did life pass by.

Now at life’s horizon,
You see the sinking sun of youth…

What zest for perfection you seemed to possess yesterday,
Was one day far back in the last eighty years.

You now stand all alone,
Left with no flesh but just bones
Like a king who won all but lost his kingdom…

You exist yet you are like a body without its soul,
Existing in inexistence!