The wind wept amongst the coconut trees,
and the neem leaves trembled in sympathy.
Evening walks along the platform
clad in late summer blues
and she pauses near the hiss of the kerosene lamp.
She keeps me company in these days
when no other person seems to grace this earth.
I have waited for 7 days and 7 nights
for my train to come smiling down the tracks
and embrace me into its familiar fold
and carry me back to civilization.
But there are no schedules,
no rumblings that speak of an approaching engine;
just me and this twilight that stretches to the limits of my perception
without a hint of a head or tail for me to judge its length.

Sure there are trees, and distant huts without lights,
and rustlings of rodents in the undergrowth,
the creak of the lamp swaying every so often,
but they are hardly enough:
I realize I need to be reflected in the speech and actions
of other people in order to be a person myself.
But I can let go sometimes and merge with the solitude
and become the dusk,
and crowd with the other insects close to the warm glow of the light
and sing with my body to the tune of the crickets
and sit down to scrape my story in the restless dirt,
where it is meant to remain for a mere moment.

"Why did you make this choice
to fall in love with fire over and over again?
Do you enjoy it when your insides are singed by a thousand candles
of the unknown?
Must you seek the brambled path to the mouth of the volcano
and risk blindness by staring deep into its heart?
Rest your head on a cold stone, drink from the cool stream that flows down the hill,
and sup not on the molten ecstasies that pour out of Her chalice."

I know no other means of being.