My Soul Flower

My inner soil is rich

Nurtured with a heavenly river of raindrops

Showers that mingle

Ever so often with my aching tears

That rush towards gravity

To conceal themselves ...

I pause and console myself with my prickly tears

Assuring them of complete privacy

"No one, no one at all, can tell the difference",

I say, "As the pouring water keeps chasing

Your tears unabashedly ...

No one would know, you are crying

Unless you keep heavily sighing",

I say a bit sarcastically

Water mingles with water

One of tears and one of raindrops

One of pain and one of promise

Soothing sunshine gets swallowed

By the humiliating fire

As the caressing winds succumb to the heat

Of the devastating desert air

Choking me, yet leaving me alive

On the brink between death and life ...

I survive, living only on the edge

Perceiving extremes

Forgetting myself

But the inner soil keeps craving for more

It cannot resist nature's lure

'I have given you all l had',

I say, 'No, not yet ...

Aren't you left?',

responds my inner earth

But of course, I too am left!

Now, I have begun to mingle with it

Pouring all the devotion

And passion of my being ...

Experiencing tides of delight and ecstasy

And of sadness and oppressive depression ...

Sometimes, I feel like the highest drop of the waters

That has the power

To hold the entire ocean together

And sometimes, I feel like a lost, little pearl

On the floor of an endless ocean ...

Centuries flew by overlooking me

While I churned and churned

In the whirlwind of my emotions

Every atom getting transformed

Slowly within me ...

Will I survive the agonising pain?

Not by setting it aside

But by living it, yet again?

Will I survive my intense restless self?

Or will I ruin my 'self' in the pursuit of flowering?

Just as I was groping for an answer

In the pin-drop silence of my being,

I heard a tiny petal unfold

Its scent longing to reach me

Then I witnessed

A magical flower reveal itself

Enveloping my being in hypnotic aroma

Finally, I saw my soul flower

Radiant like the full moon ...

In the most enchanting blush

Of the divine bloom

I broke into a dance as I celebrated

I celebrated as I danced

As the soft touch of the breeze

Bent the flower's delicate frame

Ever so gently

The whole garden of cacti around

Fell in love with it ...

Each cactus wanting to claim it

My soul flower smiled and said,

"You too grow flowers

for us to share the fragrance",

One soul flower inspired

The entire cacti garden

To grow tender petals ...

Looking at the glorious colours

Of the magical blossoms in my soul

Sprouting from amongst

The mountains of thorns

I know, my inner soil has become rich

For thorns have finally

Given way to wondrous sunbathed flowers

And I, having surrendered my inner self

To the call of my being

Have finally claimed myself

By nurturing my precious soul flower!