The Endless Knot

 

I often wondered

Why you kept staring

At that one of eight symbols

At Rumtek’s ruddy walls

‘Its an endless knot,’

You had said, tracking

Your slender figures

Over the thick brush strokes

Of the knot, while I

Could only think of Van Gogh

 

You never relooked

At the others, did you?

Equally impressionist in my eyes

Not conch shell or golden fish

(I don’t remember the rest)

But there you were,

Tracing eternity

Over and over again

At that loop of endlessness

Bereft of smile or sorrow

 

Then, your realisation

‘How many times, have we been

On these crossroads?

How many more

Before we realise

It will never end.

Endlessness

Timelessness

Circular

Eternal….’

 

An old photo wedged

As a bookmark

In an old Sikkim guide

Took me to that junction again

And only now do I realise

The value of your thoughts

How many times had we

Walked away,

How many times had we

Thought we will return?

 

And this is just one lifetime  -

Imagine the melancholy

Of so many more?

In timeless a love

Endless the pain -

The wiser you, found

The only way out

Of the Mobius strip of our lives –

For Forever to stop

Beyond the endless knot of time…

 

12^th April, 2025