Shivam

Shivam

******

Sitting now I wonder All my visions of childhood

Now pass by like a dream.

What I thought were real fights

What I experienced as happy moments

The times I cried not getting what I wanted

My hopes and frustrations

Joys and sorrows

All that I thought were Solid and true

Today pass by as shadows

Flashed from negative prints

On a showy movie screen.

Sitting now I know

Quietly within this body

Matter made of elements five

Intertwined and hugging together

All its physics and chemistry

Making it look what it is

In between cells is the space

Totally empty, nothing, silent

Outside the shell, the same space

Another shell is nearby

Twined sinews, blood and bones

With the same space within

Then another animal, a tree,

A building, an automobile

A river and a mountain

The forms are changing waves

The space lone and silent.

From the packed and crowded earth

I travel higher, higher and higher

The chill clouds like silvery fleece

The air gets thinner and thinner and thinner

Out I am into space,

Open, vast, empty and still

In the wideness everexpanding

Orbits the Earth, Moon and Planets

Stars bursting and shrinking

Throwing away in delight

The space moves farther and farther

No bother, no boundaries and borders

This is the same space within

That gets bigger and bigger

Locked in time, existing in the timeless.

- Akilananda Bharati.