Rise & Fall

The clouds parted. I was back where I started.

The journey was enchanting as ever. A backpack added extra effort for my knees. The roads seemed stretched out to eternity, while life threatened me of brevity. Steam seemed to rise from the cracks in the roads, the earth a thirsty stretch of scarred asphalt.

I had places to go, people to meet, things to do. People seemed to pass by me, with likely smiles of courtesy. Sometimes a word or two we exchanged in this map-less paradise. Some stayed for a while, with vivid promises. Bagged I, some of these sweet moments, in life's camera. The reminisces made me smile, like shimmers in a pond, the image shifting as I changed with it.

The heat of the day followed the cold of the night. Glimmers of memories lightened the path, like the occasional lightning, bright and evanescent. The stars gleamed from up above, effervescent as ever. They moved, they glittered, they vanished.  Moving on was an inevitable effect, brevity an anticipated cause....

I made friends, shook hands with my fellow comrades in this race. We partied, rejoiced, danced, loved and yet fate engraved a destiny for each of us, the many pairs of feet invariably separated to one. The gushing wind was like a parting torment, the clouds roared along in a monotonous cacophony, home was a memory nowhere to be seen. 'It'll pass' they all said as they parted.

Bereaved, holding back those moments where we loved, memories of the nectar at the lips of the loved one's we kissed, love left in the heart from those we embraced, fighting on in the vicious circle of life, the days unfolded. The rain washed away the torment, calming & consoling like time's most merciful tricks. The burning in the soul dampened and diminished like under a spell, in a false sense of comfort, in deceit of life's paradise.

Weeks, months and years later, they were all there, at a travelers' tree, waving in unison.  It held the warmth of finding something you were searching for at one point; yet something that you have learned to live without.

The clouds parted. I was back where we started. 

Our enchanting roles reprised in this imminent rise and fall...