Isolation

Our maze is made
By these, our hands,
As these, our threads
Were woven, unasked, so long ago.
While the beast, the breath
Upon our neck our own,
Longs to look past
Those dull tall walls.

And once we have walked
Alone along this broad beach,
And become connoisseurs of sand,
We then turn to the ocean-torn rock,
To ones foam-formed, bare,
Who thinking themselves into sadness,
Beat against this tide.

Do such tears ascend
When no one sees
The friendly cloud,
Alone in the high blue?

Do these drops
Glide free off feathers
With ease, like flames
Lick their food?

Deep beneath that sea
Lies a sleeping hunger;
The fire beneath those sands,
Under our earth,
One day will rise
To catch the sky
In Her palm.

Darkness will flee
Before this Black,
Before Her all named will gather;
All children, never chosen,
Sides aligned, shall fall all
Like stars into Her ocean,
Each drop burned away,
Dissolved in that gentle smile.

But for now our world,
Which is one, only broken,
Choking beside Her fruited Tree;
These numbered lines,
So freely defined,
While there behind
These coils thus counted,
One and one and one
Are we.

- Swami Ambikananda Saraswati