I have left those paths behind.
Those paths redolent of dreamy mornings
When a half-awakened consciousness precluded hope.
There were times when I turned to them,
To where once a story that had begun in innocence
Was sheathed in autumn leaves and slowly frozen to death.
On one of those early mornings
When insight played games with present reality,
You were there on the path, waiting for me to come.
I came across as a stranger, who was familiar,
As a future unknown, yet anticipated so much
That it didn’t surprise when it did come.
Those paths redolent of misted reality
Now trail at the back, and before me the clear light
Of dawn breaks. Now I wake to my dreams and live in them.
© Vidya Venkat
An anthropologist among the journalists 