Amazement

Amazement at the cycle of life
It is a rotary motion that persists
Like it was an engine
That will stop
Only
When it is switched off.

Dented, scraped, bloodied, broken, and then
Mended-
After a fashion
As in less that expert workmanship
Field stitches-
Big welty things that will produce angry ugly welts for long after everything goes blurry
But not the fixed wound-
 It will sit proud like stone cairns
Marking a wind-swept, deserted, desolate, grave.

Most of the psychic energy goes on the distractions
The agonising
The despair
What's left after this orgy of emotion-
Goes to the mending-semi-dried out, wrung-out, subdued, subordinated-
Cruelly humbled
But
Not completely defeated-
It is difficult to tell  the difference
Except for the sensation of humiliating pain
Because there is no oblivion to it.

Even if the repair does not restore it
Anything or any part
Of it
To what it was
Once or
Even yesterday-
It serves.

One does not even want it back to what it was
The former self is redundant
Amazement at the phenomenon of survival
Survives alright
Aware
Knowing of the measure of pain one can swallow.

Helpless-
The organism in you carries on
As if carrying on is of paramount importance
And there is a mystery to your suffering.

29th August 2015
Gautam Mukherjee