PAGES OF SNOW

WRITTEN BY HARRY GOVIND

I have done it again

After the rapture of twelve petrifying pages, 

I have done it again

The first of those was Herr Ambition -

the ambition that begets fire, 

the ambition that contradicts contradiction, 

the ambition that fears only fear. 

The outrageous power to dare to dream, 

the impetuous investment in unfallibility, 

the glowing filament that burns twelve thousand, megalomaniacal dreams:

Censure they get when pride hath a fall, 

scoffed they get when bubbles like bullets burst. 

The snowflakes of pulchritude they no more be -

rather, the gloomy silence that silences. 

And then like a miracle, I rise all of a sudden

from the ashes like the Phoenix.

The hunger to prostrate, a fresh lease of hope.

Yet no more to sway my heels, what's 

debilitating? I see it not, but I'm 

mechanic, oblivious, inhuman, the heart as black

as coal. The feeling of nakedness, public embarrassment;

I sob and I sob, and see not a clearer tomorrow. 

Plans get charted, recoveries plotted, 

"Those lonely two pages of contemplation 

shan't go down the drain."

And then comes the second. 

The second of those was Trust, the Missus -

the trust that tints glasses pink, 

the trust that conceives tomorrow another, 

the belief that makes believe there's no winter, 

the belief that consummates in precipice: intimate. 

But the heart as brittle as coal, 

was all but bound to shatter - yet it throbs, 

and it throbs, and hits below the belt,

residues that do not wash. 

The eerie white darkness overlapping closed eyes, 

the tears that drop down in abundance yet deficient.

The loneliness that favours the heart's reticence.

I can't see what lies tomorrow - foggy mist, foggy mist. 

But to you, Herr Ambition, Trust: the Missus, 

I shall say: I blame thee not. 

I blame thy caprice not. I shalt be a 

bondsman of how rather than why, 

and be happy for ever that thee happened to I. 

The hope of antiquity, the philosophy of twelve pages:

Life, alas, is not a bed of roses. 

And winter, precedes not spring.