A short note


This poem is completely and utterly vague, open to radical interpretation (some may even say I'm talking about religion). Hence this short note.

This poem is about change. Change that affects this whole universe. Change which is continuous. As Marcus Aurelius (Philosopher-Emperor of Rome) put it, "The Universe is change, Life is opinion." Every moment that you live changes you. Your senses provide your mind with stimulii every fleeting moment and every stimulus changes you. That's what this poem is about.

Simply put,

Life is a journey you undertake. A continuous one made up of uncountable discrete journeys made up of even more uncountable discrete journeys themselves, and so on. And every journey changes you. You die at the end of each infinitesimal journey and are born as someone similar, but slightly different. Maybe life as we see it is a small discrete part of a larger collection of journeys. Maybe it isn't. Why should you care about it? Complete this journey you've embarked upon a moment earlier. Then the next one. And so on.
Enjoy life.

In Time


Every journey I begin,
Every year that goes by,
Every voyage that I undertake
Under known sky,
I know I've travelled this way before,
A long time ago,
Mayhaps even more,
As who or what, I know not,
A traveller am I
Through time and space
And life, for many have I lived
In but an instant, in days,
In the blink of an eye have I died
A hundred deaths and many many more,
In every tear have I drowned
That has ever been cried,
In every child and man old
Have I seen fear, foretold
Of the death that tiptoes, silent,
A whisper of sound,
A minute of time,
In the blink of an eye have I died
A thousand deaths and many more,
An arrow, my weapon, they say is,
A weapon! Ha! mine! They say,
As if I needed to kill someone
When I died a million times during the day,
Every journey I began,
Every mile 'n' half that I ran,
Every length of the pool that I swam
Died I a thousand million deaths
And born again was I.

-Shaunak