Refuge

What is poetry but a refuge in escape
From the inevitable decline
Redeemed only in love or verse,
Lest the spirit lose its shine..

There may be redemption in stories retold
And grace received in chants of old
But what are they, if you pause to think
But prose that stopped at poetry’s brink

Nor guts not glory are ventured much
Unless subject to mockery’s touch
Which of course is the first assault
From one who delves little or not at all

Poems they creep in ways unknown
Through crevices and traps that never were sown
But lay in there and bide their time.
Somehow, connecting us to our divine.

The inexplicable verse may seem to pry
Where gushing rivers had been tamped to dry
Read it quick lest it make some sense
Or find internal resonance.

Read it slow, and read it fine
Allow it to seep and self align
Feel it find your stories untold
And clear away years of nasty mold

Feel the rhythm in every vein
Questing for that one refrain
That peels the layers and heals anon
Uprooting what was thought foregone

And when you look up with a sigh
Eyes unfocussed, self awry
Don’t forget to make that moment last
This is you, your future connecting with the past.

(c) Meeta W Sengupta, 2013