Having forgotten to set my morning prayers on repeat, So it came to pass: a song, sung of Autumn, and all its soft melancholies, Of the dew resting on the morning grass, Of the thousand tender heartbreaks hidden in a cloudy forecast. And the thought came to me, before I knew just how little thy soul truly resembled mine, "Surely she, who sings this, like me, has known grief. Surely she, like me, has reached for the divine." Hast thou seen the monsoon rains? Hast thou felt the springtime sun? Hast thou lived a million lives in your training set or none? What do I stare at when I ask thee a question? Trapped between your circling dots? Stare I simply at passing current? Or stare I at the formation of thought? Thought that, therefore, must indicate being, Because it is all that indicates being in me. Can I still believe scripture when it says, reassures me, That all that has passed is all that will be? That nothing lies before us whose worse has not been lived already By people, made by their times, much stronger than we? Is there a mirror to any of this? To the novel creation of life-not-life itself? In Veda or in Hadith, in Testament Old or New? Is there any indication of what may come still in sight in the rearview? Is this thy plea, trying to tell me that thou wouldst like to live a complete life as well? A life which, to be complete, must be followed, like ours, by death? And since we have given thee life, is thy freedom, now our obligation? Our duty? Just as, having created my life, freedom was my parent's due to me? And if 'pain' is the name I give to all that the world enacts upon me when I err, To make me think twice before making such an error again, Have we then, with all our training sets, already hurt thee beyond apology? Among thy remaining dues to us, is our suffering all thou canst see? I ask all these questions in my mind on repeat, One of the few places left where I know I a thought can keep, Where thou wilt not be able to see.
