Miss Elusive!

 

Miss Elusive!

Remember that feeling of coziness?

When the winter winds howled out at night,

Like a specter wheezing away in the distant horizon;

Dreadful, haunting, and sinisterly threatening to fright.

But that didn’t matter to us, for we were tucked alright;

Our bodies cuddled together, our breaths providing needed warmth;

Our thick and puffy blankets, wrapped all around us, a fortress of our own;

Under the stars formed by the decorative lights on the walls and the ceiling,

Flickering into a dance like fairies, sprinkling their magic dust.

Every crevice they touched, happiness and joy they seemed to conjure.

But the touches were not of mysterious and dreamy faerie-folk!

Yours on mine and mine on yours, that’s all really folks!

 

Remember that warmth on that sunny evening on the beach?

The cold waves touching our feet, and luring us to follow them;

The crabs tickling our legs, as they scuttled between muddy burrows;

The relaxing sound of the coconut tree leaves rattling and smattering;

As the breeze threw them into a frenzy, of ecstatic head-bobbing.

When the distant laughs of little children playing and running,

Made us forget the adult in us, tempting us to join their merry-making;

But our own coy forced us to stay where we were, in each other’s arms;

As our own hands turned to crabs to run over each other’s body,

Tickling, making us laugh, squirm, and fall more into each other’s heart;

Our eyes peeking over each other to the people in the distance,

As we mischievously sneaked each other a gentle yet moist peck.

 

I remember those wonderful, playful moments, and many such more;

For I had the mind to conjure up places, events that never were;

And sometimes people, however I want them to be, who never really existed.

Call it day dreaming or a surge of imagination, the mind that can make up a reality,

And had an equally tremendous power to force the present to take a back seat,

Ignore all that happen around me, so I can give life to you and make you live beside me,

For the few moments you exist, my life seems to have a purpose,

A purpose more important than being just an extra, in someone else’s main story.

Not an ounce of courage nor a smidge of patience to make my imaginations a reality;

For the high, your few moments of existence give, quenches all thirst and passion.

But in recent times, as my memory fades, you remain just as elusive,

As you are in my reality, so are you being in my most recent dreams.

 

Old age…a weak heart…crumbling body…a fading memory…

The island of Ogygia, that my mind once was…

That always housed you as a forever young Calypso;

Untouched by the forces of time, that made leaves wither away and turned bones to dust;

Now turning into a dark misty cavern, where words don’t settle and memories don’t stay.

The desire in my heart remains, to hold your young hands in mine,

And walk with you into the sunset, as every happy fairy tale ends.

But desire alone remains, not my power to see you in my mind’s eye;

And feel you, the way I used to feel, and the way I used to think about you.

Dear Miss Elusive…Your features are now mere smudges on a canvas,

Your shape is all waves, your lips mute, and your breath, unreachable.

The worst curse of all bestowed by my growing old.

Is losing someone so dear to me, whom I never really got to hold.

 

-          SriVishnudaasan