Sun Seeker
Sun Seeker
I was waiting in the dark for dawn's first light
For those bright beams of sunlight
That cuts through night's deathly grip
That pierce through the billowy black clouds
Like Surya's divine chariot
Hauled by steads drunken with might and vigor
Hammering the sky, harrowing the stillness
Turning the earth away to usher a new day
But night didn't take her leave
And I sat there waiting in the room's darkness
And I waited for days sitting by the window
And then I wandered for days through the town
Tapping at doors, rapping at windows, calling names
But no one came
It seemed that everyone was sound asleep
Cemented to their dreams as if in a divine tryst
I could hear them snoring, talking, walking
In their dreams, I tried to wake them
But they pushed me away and I chose to walk alone
Soon, I was in a forest, deep, dense and haunting
And I came across a small dwelling in a small dale
There, around a campfire I saw men dancing and singing
I asked them if they knew when dawn would come
And they told me that it would be quite soon
That the sun had refused to rise due to our depravity
That the darkness all about was our own reckoning
That the world had been subdued by absolute misery
By a despair so vast that in its maw
Entire worlds would fit in and be crushed to time
But they told me that there was a way to usher dawn
To do away with all this dark, all this sorrow
They gave me a book and an emblem and laws to obey
They told me to never oppose, to never defy or transgress
And promised me that that moment was coming soon
And it all rested on us, on our own conscience
And I obeyed, never opposed, never defied or transgressed
But night didn't take her leave
So I left and didn't even bade them goodbye
And thus I wandered and wandered and wandered
Until I left the forest and stumbled upon a castle
Inside, I met many men and women who welcomed me
They seemed to know a great deal about our predicament
In the castle was a great room surrounded by books
We read them endlessly and sat on our chairs and tables
And we talked and talked and talked and they
Seemed to know a great deal about the darkness
About why it happened, how it happened, when it happened,
How long it might last and where in the world it
Must have affected the most, I enjoyed a great deal
And I asked them when dawn would come and they
Gave me a hundred ways that it could and again
We talked and talked and talked about the ways
But night didn't take her leave
So I left and was too distraught to bade them farewell
Finally, I found the tallest mountain in the world
And I found many at its foot trying to climb it
To catch a glimpse of the sun
Perhaps far away in some distant horizon, rising but slowly
Therefore I decided to climb it too
Many stopped at the foot, many fell down a sheer slope
Many were lost in the forests, many eaten by beasts
Many broke their limbs, many went insane from the dark
And many were tired and chose to descend back to the foot
However, after many months of climbing and camping
I did reach the tip of the world surrounded by clouds
But night didn't take her leave
And there was no sun, no stars, no moon, no sky
Just me and the utter blackness
That echoed the defeat of my heart
I sat there and I cried and cried and cried
And after I had exhausted my tears,
I realized that there never was a dawn to begin with
That the sun was just a myth, a dream that we believed in
That darkness was the true nature of the world
That misery was etched even into the flowing of the rivers
The rising of the mountains, the twittering of birds
I let the sun sink in the horizon of my heart
I embraced the night that benighted the country of my soul
I accepted the darkness and never sought the sun again.