Poetry : An Imposter

     

                                            C'est toi ce soir. 

          An Imposter

The Sun prepared its eastern rise,

As moonlight faded from the skies.

A silver cucco’s springtime cry,

Broke through the dark as night slipped by.

The clock struck two-and-thirty chime—

It was The Brahmamuhurta, The sacred time.

When seekers wake from silent sleep,

To find the soul and secrets deep.

Then soft as dew from Alpine peaks,

A murmur came against my cheeks.

"A dacoit, a quitter, a liar, a cheat,

An imposter, skilled in every tact"—

I felt the weight of every fact.

I weighed the lessons I had sought,

The humble grace that I was taught.

If all I’d learned was but a lie,

And all my virtues born to die.

The lessons of a humble heart,

Forgiveness as a quiet art,

The strength to keep my storms within,

Was this a failure? Was it sin?

The middle path was what I sought

The path that Gautam Buddha taught

The books of old, the philosophers light,

Seemed worthless in the dead of night.

Because I’m sensitive and kind,

The world deems me a "timid" mind.

Within a breath, the bridge was burned,

A "dear one" to a stranger turned.

I reached to find our old embrace,

But found an empty, silent space.

First vous, then tu, then vous again, A pendulum swings with a human brain. The formal rhythm, then the friendly tone, A social logic and it is done

I fumbled through the sudden cold,

To find the hand I used to hold,

But as I called into the air,

No voice returned to meet me there.

But I am no imposter’s ghost,

No liar’s tongue, no dacoit’s host.

I am a soul that seeks the light,

Beyond the whispers of the night.

Though I am gentle, I am brave—

To keep on learning till the grave.

- Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya