In The Wheel

Nongthombam Neebendra Singh *

Quest:
From somewhere in time, in a new physical beginning: an inception
like them and everyone else, forces within tells: I've moved along.
In good faith, in natural process: I begin to feel that I have come of age,
is bound to go on, as it seems, there has been the need to move on...
A pointless, inescapable need: a monotonous matter of daily happening...

Thus I go on, as I feel that I have to
watching somewhat inside of self, watching somewhat outside of self.
And as they go on, as they too have to
watching a little less deep inside, watching a little more outside.

Time! for the physical... in such speed! a matter of ever dwindling seconds.
The King's killing hand strikes down: readily reducing the allotted hours:
His Majesty! the destroyer of the worlds: the sneering Clock on the wall...
Mocking me and my pride, all these tireless tasks Sisyphean...
While countless items illusory happen: bright and beautiful,
countless other items illusory too: rather sad and sorrowful.
All these delightful daily dealings: living and longing...

Like passing images: A phalanx of persons, things and events in each stage,
Like passing images: myriad impressions: they keep going on, and going on...
a dreamy phantasmagoria life seems to be... going through thick and thin.
My own story is quiet vague: a twisted plot filled with fervid feelings,
and yet more closely seen, it fairly seems to be so for all and sundry.

There surely is an unsolvable enigma of arrival and of passing away...
There surely is an unsolvable enigma of arrival and of passing away...

Like dancing phantoms, subtle sensations haunting me, my consciousness,
on a basis regular: only to become mixed memories of stagnant nature,
always somewhere in my sad subconscious, and the dog-eared dairy pages.
Now, my silent life loves to go on silently, and goes on, on random roads...
I, like the rest of them: since there has been the inescapable need to move on...

End of Quest:
In the soul's cycle: a slew of material matters of sweet significance,
Truth seems to threaten: will possibly recede into sour insignificance,
with the arrival of that often feared moment of the inevitable transfer:
another mysterious moment to shed the skin made of the elements five:
to something beyond the cares and anxieties of what has been this life,
something beyond gold and silver, the colourful realms of what is known.

Into another physical entity: the rather colourless truth,
to which only Karma starts the signal...
The rightful fruits of each being's deep desires, actions...
It seems the only true way we move on...
It seems the only true way we move on...

Inside of an ever restless circle, rolling on and on, the wheel symbolic,
with a promise of no easy escape from such an energetic eternal verity.

And the Wheel treads on...
And the Wheel treads on...