Lullaby

[ I was not sure if this should be or could be put into words but still, here it is. Lest I forget what to do when I find myself awake till 3 a.m.]

The silver dreams of the golden days
hung afloat, shattered
bleeding black,
still shining though.

The horizons smeared with ashes grey
as far as the eyes could see
and here in my bed I lay
Still. Awake.
Inconsolably. Uncomfortably. Incorrigibly.

I think hard and remember
my memory brings back to me -

That lullaby.

What was it? A hymn perhaps?
And the patting by those hands
Those rough heavy hands with calluses from years of work
came gently down my forehead.

I clearly remember,
That day, many years ago
I had just woken up
But was put back to sleep
instantly
with the humming of that lullaby
and those comforting pats.

And how one day,
I can't remember when
the lullaby was heard no more
I was too young to understand what death was,
Or bereavement.
The only physical sign I could remember is,
My father seemed to have aged years in a few days.

"My memory has no mercy on me." I read somewhere.
Rightly so.
It wasn't until recently that I realised

the treachery of memory,

it wasn't until now that I missed that lullaby, 

Recalling it, fiercely
picturing those hands gently putting me back to sleep,
patting myself,
trying to listen to that wordless hymn in the silence of the night.

And somewhere in this train of thoughts,
I find myself lost in the void of sleep.
That lullaby, still
comes back to me,
to comfort me.

...

[ Attempt at breaking the writer's block. Couldn't come up with a title, hence the ellipsis, which ironically indicate a pause whereas I'm hopefully overcoming one - a pause of 3 months and this post is perhaps as cheesy as I could get (period). How difficult was it? Well, I wanted to end it with "Enough of this shit, I'm no John Keats." But oh, this compulsion to write! I somehow made it to the end! ]



My heart must be a forest,
I say so because of relentless rhythmic sounds :

the savage roars and brutal chases -
futile, mostly.

The wimper of the vanishing,
the silence of the dead.

The wildfires blazing,
grazing all within its bend
and the struggling life, continuing,
despite.

The soft showers falling,
washing away the old
the joy of new creation,
that the forest unfolds.

The bubbling quicksand,
the hissing of snares,
the nightfall with its sinister glares.

The new dewy dawn,
dispersion of the dark
with the chirping and the abundance of songs, 
another day embarks.

And that less frequented core,
the little heart of hearts -
the deep forest of booming silence and light,
and a few wincing scars.

The forest flourishes
with every orchestrated beat,
indifferent
to the fate it meets.