Transience

A strand of gray hair startles me.
No amount of dyes will hide this:
Our story of hellos and goodbyes
Has but one certain last chapter.
So I look back and I am filled
With tenderness and gratitude
Thinking about what I once thought
Were the inconsequential things.

I remember one summer day
Under drifting white clouds, hearing
A lark in the green, leafy woods;
I think of evenings spent alone,
As the radio played out my songs
While it rained softly on the roof.
My days are fragrant with the scent
Of favorite books and wild flowers.

At the vast edge of this silence
Why do I swell with thankfulness?
Brief though it may be, and incomplete,
How glorious it is to exist:
To speak soft words of beating love,
To think for myself, to believe
In great things, and to be one
With hills and streams and endless stars.

Diptesh Ghosh