Invisible Efflorescence Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair

Winter has said adieu,
spring arrives,
birds trill,
cherry blossoms thrill,
blooms of different hues
white, pink, red, yellow, green
and many a fantastic amalgam,
splendor words fail to fathom,
open their eyes.

With winter meditation ended,
long fast of leafless penance done,
an unseen light now showers
benedictions of different colors
on waking barks and twigs -
life begins to bloom.

First as sprouting buds,
which in days, nay, hours
break into glorious efflorescence
of a million hues,
the first blossoms then wither
and foliage spreads
gleaming, dark, vegetable green,
and oft the first leaves in sway
on maples wither to give way
to different waves of green
of different shapes,
lo, all in a matter of days,
spring pours out her mirth
in trillion colors -
a paradise awakes.

Little birds -
towhees, warblers, robins
flycatchers and tanagers
that hid in bushes,
filled with untouched berries,
like ascetics, now begin to hop
and dance chirping melodious songs
on the shrubs,
across the street
and over the distant skyline
of fir, cedar, spruce,
weeping willows, pine,
the wind joins.
pollens like snow-flakes rain.

And an unseen flower
then creeps into the scene -
a particle made of acid and protein,
a minute bit of great artistic sheen,
in search of a perch
inside the human flesh,
and, alas, man is scared.

He locks himself in,
forgets the spring,
sinks in ponds of antiseptics,
holds his breath and masks his face,
shuns his friends
and mourns as though
the world has come to an end.

Strange are Nature's ways -
spring external is sung in myriad tunes,
extolled in poems ecstatic,
an internal efflorescence,
perhaps, a million times more colorful
is condemned a plague.

Why did the Maker design
man with so much fear
to live a life full of shivers
when birds sing sans worry,
dragon-flies dance in gaiety,
without thought of a morrow,
forebodings, angst and sorrow?

Man forgot the ancient truth
"I know, therefore, I am",
embraced Cartesian logic
"I think therefore I am",
and look now, how low!
he mutters "Am scared, therefore I am"!