At first sleep hangs around
like an unwanted guest.
The moment flickers
late into the night...
Far away a star glimmers —
some pilgrim on a night's journey
chanting a mystic strain
holding a lantern in hand.

It suffices to sit in pain
distilling memory
in silence and solitude
resurrecting the agony of lights
that went out one by one.

The fog distances the pilgrim
as it settles on the window-pane,
forming perfect droplets,
seductive, luxuriant,
in the soft glow of my lamp
before it consumes me and the moment,
wrapping me up in complete forgetfulness
of the pilgrim, trudging a night path,
by the lamps of the sky.
for another day.

 © CR Mittal

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