My faith kept: A poem 

Let’s say, I grew sixty all of a sudden 

I can’t figure out how I lost teeth 

and my shrunken feet or the wheat 

of my skin drying up, my chest less, 

cataract and subtract of vision 

The wires of my mind can remember and forget 

the beads of youth rotating and not repeating 

I can say I was liveried by duty and was neutered 

by the choice to do it, willingly. The road is not mistaken 

This is no dream from which I was rudely awoken 

I didn’t drop faith in a well to drown in waters 

of desire. I let my silent footsteps talk the walk 

The mist of faith clears as you grow older 

For the colours of the spots to grow bolder 

The wilderness was never cleared by greedy developers 

The ores shone unpolished by hands of jewellers 

I didn’t deign, didn’t disdain, feign piety 

I let it rain on me with no clouds of self-pity 

Faith walks in one direction, arm-in-arm 

with conviction, in shoes of duty 

The task can’t be well done until undone 

time and again. Faith shakes with the earth, 

but trembles not; flames with fire, but scorches not 

There comes a headwind and a tailwind, 

there’s turbulence. But the flight is destiny