Onward Bound

When Art Paints with Words

Open sky with the empty road ahead,

Lots more to do, despite final hellos and goodbyes. 

As the road directs me, lighting up,

Drawing me onward to what’s next,

Voices heard, tune down as memories revisit, 

Faces clear, expressions, details,

Life and its calling is clear, the time has come.

Down to earth, smiling and all things said, unsaid, 

Incomplete, nameless, but grateful to and in honour of, 

They passed by, met, ignored, evaded, all treated, 

Now in their place of unbeing,

As skulls for some, graves for others

Indeed grateful, for the smoke lifts up- feeding, feeding 

Memories melding into forms- awaken, awaken.

Mountains meet the one sky now, or is it one?

The things seen, experienced, felt, unnumbing,

All coming together, memories and reality.

The sky clouds up to It, as It shows me the faces one last time. 

Legs weaving, is this a sign now of the final vision,

Of the end, the absolute? Heaven, on earth? 

The spectacle, I wish company could see.

I’ve always seen red, But today emerging are other, 

Colours weirdly familiar still, and with them,

The trees that hide, the souls that became,

The tent of sticks with the doors and windows. 

Unmoving, undeterred, laser-focused on my destination, 

To become one, with the one above, the caller, redeemer, 

The yearning bears fruit, It’s presence reassuring me.

City streets silenced, emptied, and the wide open refilled, 

It’s own new township, enlightened of It,

The earth welcomed you, the graves scream your screams 

For all to see, to believe.

To know you, your differing expression,

But always ending in final awe of,

As the tent of sticks approaches closer, faster.

Through the doors and windows, displaced, shattered, 

Of a beaten down van, ignored every-time, in which,

Do sing along, won’t you? There is only time to savour, 

As your song plays, I can only laugh, play and trick, 

Over way too soon, despite the how and with-what, 

Always different, always a mess, before the next.

All in light of the eventual perfect next shrine, the next town.

By Karan Talgeri