Nocturnal Bliss Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

At last work was completed
It was two-fifteen in the night
With a feeling of satisfaction
I started driving back home.

Eerie silence on the road
No human soul come across
No company save
My WagonR’s whirr.

No sign of life
Save the howling dogs
Or a flurrying cat
Or a scampering mongoose
Flitting across the road
And accentuating the nightly stillness.

Only witnesses:
The dim-lit dark green sentinels
On either side of the road
As if in deep yogic meditation;
And my own slanting reflection
In the Moon with her pale and dazed visage
Through my open right window.

Safe and smooth driving
Nay gliding or sailing it was
Giving me a feeling of levity.

The black road ahead
Looking like the interminable tongue
Lolling out of my car.

There was some eerie frisson
In the spin;
I just wanted to ride on
Indefinitely into the space.

I, the lone creature on the road, felt
I was an extra-terrestrial on this earth
Or a terrestrial on some other planet
I was the monarch of all I espied…

Alas! My psychedelic happiness
Came to an abrupt reluctant stop
As I reached my home
Sooner than I liked.

Post midnight hours
Still and soothing
Have their solitudinous bliss.
May my late nocturnal rounds
Where I’m against the rest of the world
Long live, long live!

[Mar 19,2009: : Hyderabad - 500 056]