Home Tonight

2024-09-28

I'd written this poem years back. I can't even remember the context or the time. But it brings an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, of evanescence - of people and loves who move on, always too soon it seems. Parting seems like demise, and its irrevocable passage doesn't make it any easier. Bitter lovers have often talked of such periods as those of wasted opportunity, as if anything which doesn't have a classic consequence or a desired denouement is a phase in futility. The fallacy of endings being more important than the rush of the ...

Parting seems like demise, and its irrevocable passage doesn't make it any easier.

Bitter lovers have often talked of such periods as those of wasted opportunity, as if anything which doesn't have a classic consequence or a desired denouement is a phase in futility. The fallacy of endings being more important than the rush of the journey.

But those who know about transience, who know that life is only a zen exercise, an observance of moments, know how life is both accumulation and movement, of experiencing and moving on.

All my poet friends keep telling me "Don't wallow in nostalgia! It is treacly. Too much sentimentality is dangerous to health." Maybe. What I do love doing is to think back and smile. Of having reconciled with what travels, what hurts, what sustains, what follows, what stays. And of looking back at it all, as the hurt and gain of irrevocable passage.

f you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on departures -