Poetry – Antariksh Mukherjee

In your beauty and fair,
Cold, without a care,
Fluttering free and fine,
With the wings of time.

With a pace unrelenting,
Your course unwavering,
Won’t you take away this pain of mine?
With your wings of time?

Oh butterfly with scarlet blue wings,
Playing master with time’s strings,
How dare you dictate our fate,
Yet hardly ever are our lives sate,

How dare you have a say,
Of the roles we get to play,
How unfair even steadfast,
That we can’t outrun our past?

Is that time and life?
Filled with grief and strife?
Or are my strings broken, torn,
To feel so heavy and worn?

You have fell towering Kings,
Your tales the mask of tragedy sings,
All the lives led astray,
Is it truly your fault as they say?

Is it truly fate, that it was meant to be?
Or ’tis a hollow excuse, to let our conscious be?
Am I the God of my own misfortune?
Or is control all but an illusion?

But, are you mischievous or sadistic, do tell,
To mar Paradise with such hell,
Does sadness occur with your joy,
To see the fruits of your wings’ ploy?

Oh butterfly, your strings of silk fine,
I can see with eyes mine,
Ever subtle tugs, a master at work,
Making moves through thick murk.

Oh butterfly, why oh why,
Don’t you allow me to live nor die?
For even through relentless pain,
Ever so often, I can’t complain.

Thus I wonder often,
Do your wings pose a question?
If answered, can we break free?
Or beyond, is a dark endless sea?

Is this time through life?
Filled with peace as well as strife?
Is this your beauty and fair?
Ever cold and without a care?

To what end will this go?
To what end will your unending flow,
Lead us to what damnation?
Or lead us to some arbitrary realisation?

Oh butterfly with scarlet blue wings,
Playing master with time’s strings,
Don’t you take away this pain of mine,
With your majestic wings of time.