Under The Stars

It's night, I step out

To gaze at the pinpricks

Blazing in the dark sky.

It's night, I step out,

Out of my isolation

To seek you out

Among the multitude of stars

In strife with the dark.

But I'm lost! There are so many!

Which one is you, I wonder?

I'm lost! so I wait

In the hope that you will come to me instead;

Fall out of the sky like a shooting star,

Drop down next to me,

Incinerate my loneliness.

And so I wait until the light of day grows,

Until one-by-one it smothers the twinkling fairies,

Until its time to step back into isolation.

And when the day grows old and turns into night,

I'll step out again,

Under the pinpricks blazing in the dark sky,

To wait for you, won't you come?

So alone...

Empty Spaces

It's dawn, the sun rises.

Lights up the world,

Your solitude,

Your sleeping face.

It's dawn the sun rises.

Lights up my room,

With the clothes strewn all around,

The deepest corners of my womb,

Lights up the lonely spaces around me, where you aren't.

And ever brighter the sun will grow, chase away the shadows,

As it mocks my lonlinesss, flooding the empty spaces with light,

The spaces where you aren't.

Until at last the twilight comes

And pulls the mocking sun back below the edge of the world.

It's night, the sun has gone away;

Shadows spring from the corners again

To veil the empty spaces around me,

The lonely spaces where you aren't.

It's night, the sun has gone away;

But the shadows are beaten back again

As the festive lights flash in the sky

In festive burts they illuminate the wondrous joy on your face.

But in my room they drive back the shadows,

The veil thrown over my longing for your company.

In festive bursts they illuminate the empty lonliness around me,

The lonliness where you aren't.

The Blue Bus

On a warm summer evening

I set out to find you,

In a blue bus that carries me into sadness;

But sadness is hard to find.

On and on the bus takes me

Through twilight past empty fields,

Through tunnels that burrow under the feet of brown hills,

Through passes in lofty mountain ranges,

Past anonymous towns and hamlets.

The milestones whizz by 

As the stars peep out and light the way to you,

They remind me how much further I must go

Until I get to you.

But then a big city looms up 

And its lights and its haze

Snuff out the guiding stars.

And here the bus must stop 

Until a new sun rises,

With the promise of finding you at last.

- Abhishek Takle

The Window

As we sat on a glowing cloud, gazing ahead into a starry sky,

A small square window looked out on us.

It watched silently as you leaned back into my arms

It watched as I kissed your head.

It listened as you spoke about constellations

Or looked on as you stood silent in the breeze.

It beheld the wonder in your eyes which reflected

The lights of a flying machine in the sky;

Or the tears that glistened as you looked down 

At the passing cars in sadness.

It stayed awake as you drifted into sleep 

With Orion standing guard among the stars.

It saw your face light up

With the glow of passing meteors.

And now I go to the window

But all I see is the empty night sky.

A wind has taken the cloud away 

And without me you have gone.

But I wait and wait so the wind may bring

That cloud back to me,

I wait and wait so I too may catch a glimpse

Of what the window has seen.

-- Abhishek Takle