Go on, go on...

The sea was rough, and the tide was high,

the shore seemed far, the end seemed nigh,

The boat of hope was all but sunk,

a gasping life, on the sea, was flung.

A raging storm was here to stay,

it roared and lit, a canvas grey

Despair, doom and mercy none,

the tide had turned, with nowhere to run.

I looked up at the skies, in search of him,

all hope was lost, my heart was grim.

I heard a voice, calling out to me,

"Go on...go on..., stand-up to the sea".

"No battle is bigger, than the grit of thee,

Go on...go on..., stand-up to the sea".

"Smile back at the storm, stand up on your feet

Stare into its eyes and watch it retreat".

"You have all it takes, to swim through the night,

till the sea is calm and you have trumped its might".

I paddled through the monstrous sea,

and the fear and fright, that it once brought to me.

With the wind in my back and the shore in my sight,

I was swimming through the darkness and towards the light.

When my wrinkled hands, touched the sandy shore,

I let out a scream, unable to hold it no more.

As I lay in the sand, with my arms spread wide,

my body trembling, tears rolling down the side.

I heard a voice calling out to me,

"No battle is bigger, than the grit of thee"

Nadeem....

Coffee with...

After a grueling week...week after week, the mind more than the body gives in. It says enough...it cries out for some peace, as if raising its arm in the air asking for me to stop. The mental gymnastics of solving analytical problems and mystical people take its toll, not that the I succeed in it all. The Friday evening seems like a gentle zephyr blowing at the end of a scorching day...calming nerves, cooling the mind as I join my hands in a T shape signalling the break! I have added a new ritual to my weekends these days...that of having coffee with that one person I have longed to be with for many years now...the person who has been lost somewhere in material things and has forgotten the simple joys of life...coffee with myself...It gives me a time to reflect back on some wonderful years and some wonderful people who were part of it. The long walks at the beach at dusk, the sight of the sun going down like a biscuit in a cup of tea...the wind, the joy of friends and some lonely wanders...it all comes back to me. My mind wanders into roads I left behind and now visit ever so seldom. It wanders to those times when I was a simple man, with simple needs and a fickle heart! All that has changed...the material life...the bing of things and somewhere I have lost myself...only to find him for some moments...in those weekend coffee breaks!