30

A few lines composed on the eve of my 30th birthday

The lookout from an ancient castle towering over arid hills in South Asia, Circa 2017.

I.

Finitude bites in the earliest hour,

In night’s fourth watch, my fears come home to roost.

Along Mueller’s¹ path, hazy trees tower,

As I run to and from, what time has loosed.

Thirty years running, running to and from,

And for all I have yet still to become.

II.

In time, I was most often running from,

From friends and family, from knowing

And being known — an apathetic sum

Of flesh, guts, and bones — stunted from growing

By self-imposed distance from God and Grace.

Thirty years running in futile space.

I was always running from either time

Or home. To run from home is expected —

Like White Wynd² on his mad errand, I climbed

From childhood’s bosom, quickly dejected,

Feeling homesick at home, my feet alight

Slippin’ away in adolescent night.

I ran ‘neath ruined minarets, on old

Streets littered with cheap, half-burnt cigarettes —

Through bazaars where ancient scenes still unfold,

Where vignettes of Tagore’s³ storied silhouettes

Were told, lazily, in the warm Bengali sun -

There, I ran to and for and mainly from.

I ran from darkness of the soul and mind,

From the Still Small Voice ever gently chiding,

Reminding, I, too, cannot outrun my kind.

For thirty years, wrinkles now abiding,

I found the shortest path home is to run.

To run always towards and never from.

III.

For to run from always means running to,

To the altar on a stormy Saint Louis

Afternoon⁴, to a park bench next to you,

To the strange, unabashed joy moving through us

As we danced to La Vie en Rose⁵ beneath

Dim street lights, outside in Nashville’s dark heath.

With chattering teeth and a cup of tea,

Prayers heard rhythmically — in Auburn’s dawn,

I ran to communion at 443⁶.

I ran to wastelands and waiting rooms, gone

Through humid monsoons, sat neath harvest moons,

And wore grey kurta’s spun from Darzi’s⁷ loom.

Thirty years, mostly chasing elusive

Traces of what I now know to be joy.

I found glimpses of it in reclusive

Widows, joy that lonely years could not destroy.

I heard of it from snaggletoothed boys playing

Cricket in the street, and in decaying

Slums where the same children lay down to sleep.

It, joy, comes and sits in the mundane heap

Of time and place - in roadside bluebonnets

And hastily written sonnets, forgot

By time’s cruel demands. I have stood upon it

In pine forest, my native land, begot

On long sandy banks of the Chattahoochee⁸ —

Surprised by joy, ever moving through me.

So now, after thirty years have passed,

I reflect on all I have done and left

Undone, on this silent planet outcast,

At last running to and not from heaven’s final cleft.

I pray Father, ‘not my will but yours be done’

For as long as I journey ‘neath earth’s weary sun.

1. Mueller is a park close to my house on the East side of Austin. I often go there for early morning runs or afternoon walks. It is one of the few places in the Austin metro that is legitimately quiet in the pre-dawn hours.

2. White Wynd is the name of a character in a G.K., who wakes up one day and realizes he is homesick at home. The farm, people, and objects around him have grown dull. He therefore sets out on a journey to discover his true home. He ends up walking around the entire world, only to find himself back at his own doorstep. And with new eyes, more weary yet renewed, and arrive back at home knowing it in a new light. Much of the content from the subsequent is borrowed from that story. If you want to read it, I have it linked here.

3. The allusion here is to Rabindranath Tagore. He was a Bengali writer, poet, and literary critic who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. His short story The Cabuliwallah and his collection of poetry titled Gitanjali: Song Offerings are among my favorites. I have linked them in their titles above.

4. My wife and I were married on one such afternoon. In fact, we had a popsicle stand hired for the interlude between our ceremony and the reception, but due to the fury of a Saint Louis summer thunderstorm, we had to flee inside. Therefore, the 80 or so popsicles that were unable to be eaten by our guests were given to us upon return from our honeymoon. We had eaten them all before a month went by. We still laugh about this to this day.

5. My wife and I love the Louis Armstrong version of this song. We often find ourself dancing around the kitchen to the version linked here.

6. 443 is the address to the townhome that myself and four other roommates crammed into during our college years at Auburn. Due to its centrality and layout, we hosted communal prayer each weekday morning.

7. Darzi is the Hindi word for tailor.

8. The Chattahoochee River, made famous by the catchy Alan Jackson song, is a muddy river that acts as the dividing line between Georgia and Alabama in the Southern portion of both states. My maternal grandparents owned land along it growing up, where my siblings, cousins, and parents taught us to hunt and enjoy the outdoors.