Brahma Kamal

Years ago, in my ambles in the hills,

I met a traveller on a pass,

Not in search of ice white peaks

Or even solitude, like few of us

But in the mountain quest to seek

The elusive brahma kamal bud,

No, not for commerce or botany

His quest in rain and mud

 

Why then? I asked him on that day

‘So that I don’t find the bloom at all’

Seeing my surprise, he smiled,

‘So that I keep walking in these mountains tall’

The flower that blooms a single night

In the wait of an entire year,

And on its pilgrimage trail, a soul

With neither yearning nor a fear

  

What was then, the purpose in those endless trails?

Not to find, neither to seek

But just to see you make your prints

On an ice-melt stream or creek

Perhaps, in the brahma kamal’s trail, he sought

The mountains’ blessing in a very heavy odd

And then one day in heaven’s steps -

Find flower, man and god…