The oil has started to seep in.
Earthen lamp is damp.
It was there, the whole night-
with its flickering light.
Trying to withstand unhoused winds.

Do you remember, Paagli?

Like a flash of the lightning,
brilliant and blind-
this flicker would shatter a slumber,
emparadise the darkness around?

Does the vernal wind bleed?
On its solemn journey to extinguish?

You knew, didn’t you?
This flicker was not a perishable gaud?
The wind around, that burdens itself,
with shackles of unpaid debts to your God-
has wronged?

Why did you let it advance?
Why didn’t you stand in the way, like the gray sphinx, guarding its God-
when it was gathering motion?

Each droplet of moisture it carries today,
is laden with motionless battalion of outride.
Accumulated in a relentless exercise-
of keeping a life boiling.
Though pale, and invisible,
you can see them-
condensed like a pool that is stirred-
by wings of a shadowy bird.

Cage the wind, Paagli.
Let the flicker last till sunshine,
For it still lusts for speed and battle.
Let the golden hue of a morning Sun,
and innate strength of your vermilion-
dry its dampness.

Surround it-
with cincture of your force.
Don’t let it reach the last silence.
Alone, and absolute.