Wrote it sometime in 2004 while waiting for someone/something at a dhaba! I think it was during a bus journey! just saw all these tracks in the sand and with the final semester coming up in college I guess it reminded me of so many lives in college and hostel that meet, merge and leave!
1/3/2004
Dust and sand befallen
Settled in passive motion
Marks of time giving its
Monotone an expression
Tyre tracks bear witness
To vagaries of time
Emoting a story
In inanimate mime.
They meet, they leave
They merge to be one
A uniqueness highlighted
Other identities hidden
Hidden but not lost
A distinction felt, not seen.
The present really is
A freeze frame of what has been.
I move along then
To see what the future was
As they headed out to
Freedom bound by laws.
Some left united
Some stayed back to wait
Some tracks were lost to
Quirks of time and fate.
My eyes couldn’t see
Beyond the horizon;
The mind too confined
Within the limits of imagination.
The united may separate
The separated may again meet
Or the future may tap dance
To a completely new beat.
But tracks they were in dust
Their origins weren’t there
Nor was their end but
Their marks will always bear. 