To A Friend Terminally Ill Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

To a friend terminally ill

I wonder how you chose me as your friend
For what all I did to you troubled you
You are a great friend as you intervened
Me with your wisdom and
Prevented my fall into the pit of my foolishness
You minded not my indifference to your advices
But kept persuading me to take only the right path
I do not remember to have done even a single
Deed worth recalling and remembering

Nature played its havoc on you
And is determined to snatch you away
You know I am incapable of doing
Anything to stop this separation
I thought that I only ditched you
But your own blood mutated malignantly
Paving way for your painful departure
In one way, it was also good as I know
You are to depart; I will start caring a bit more
On my ways of doing as there will be none
To check my ruthless routes

I know, you have pains, but do not cry
But you see, we cry, simply anticipating pains
You are in light and enlightened
We in darkness not knowing where to look for light
You are ready with your baggage
We still searching, and if found, loading it further heavily
You play with death, a real friend, who has been
Gaming hide-and-seek in each breathe since we are born
And who is the ultimate friend
But we are afraid of him and believe
We can once and for all evade him
You know you are at the exit
We do not know where are we, who knows
We may be closer to exit than you
You are free from the shackles of life
We are bonded to the fear of death
You personify the glory of reality
We glorify the fallacies of the unreal

I do not require to say “Do not worry and
I will take care” as you know
I cannot do that as effectively as you have been doing
You know pretty well things happened,
Happen and will go on happening whether
You are there or not
I do not think you need words of consolation
As you know words are only words
And many a time they are not meant
I will not shed tears as I know
Your soul cannot stand it
I will not make efforts to remember you as you know
Your soul will be around me ever
I will not be talking about you
As you will be talking through me

I will meet you there, how soon or late I do not know
Not to burden you, as I have been doing
But to hold you in my heart

If you believe in another birth
Be careful not to choose a friend of my sort