I sat alone with this giant heap of past, a groaning gunny bag,
I sat alone, unpacked it piece by fragile piece, with bomb disposal care
The childhood fears, the faces, feelings all, the leaps to trust, to pain, to shy away
Faded postcards from brighter times. All the wish you were heres and glad you arents.

I took them out, piece by quiet piece, placed them in all the many corners of my life
A mandala of tiny talismans. I could live like this, I thought.
I moved within this mandala museum, as if it was the real world. I populated it with beings, with phantoms, with ideas, with plans, with flashes of beauty, with nostalgia and regrets, with slices of the View carved out and erected on perfect tiny altars of sense-making.

But then another – One – graced this grand museum of ‘I’ and gently removed each and every artifact from its carefully curated place. And in its place?

The terrifying replacement of nothing!

All that I thought I was now swirls in autumn winds about my head.
Free from the informative dated labels and the sectioned glass protections
They are leaves shedding in the wake of time.
And I stand up, wearily, emptied of it all, a cold stark tree in barren space.

And yet, this pulse from somewhere in my groin, the beating of the never vanquished life
Calls for it all to rise and grow again.