Yearning (and other things we carry in the journey)

Who are we, if not people who live on hope, thought to thought, day to day, year to year. Often knowing about possibilities, often just whistling in the wind. It could be a change of fortune, a lucky break, a chance encounter, a person we’d always loved. Everything, even what seems to be the minutest of an incident, has the potential to change lives, and more often than not, it does.

 

And until it does, hope binds us to invisible tethers.

 

Gurus talk about yearning, as they talk about the journey, and remind us not to lose the experience of what we go through.

 

To know that the journey of feelings is often more precious than what we finally get.

 

The untetheredness of anguish, the ecstasy of possibility, the world building, the smart turn of phrase, the laughter, the look, the sheer joy of something which could only be defined as tender. That is the road to finally getting something. Heartbreakingly , and retrospectively, when we finally get - what we wanted, who we wanted, how we wanted - it is often bereft of glory. Compared to the striving, what we finally get seems so much lesser - less glittering, less flawless, less satisfying.

 

And thus go things in life, and thus do love stories find their beginnings, their middles and their ends. Too many affairs end at the consummation. And it would be a tragedy to have that as the only remembrance - and not the tease and the expectation and the imagination and the excessive giving and the extravagance leading towards it all.

 

And because of that, every story stands stunted, it’s rich repository of the best of what we human beings are capable of lying discarded with a sheen of regret, as if it meant for nothing. When the truth is that this is what we actually live for.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the urgings and yearning:

• Miles Apart
• Gather Me
• Aaschi (a promise)

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com

Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.

 

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Odyssee by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/56-odyssee
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license