Reminiscence Poem by Shriram Iyengar

Sometimes when I am wandering
Through perfectly still nights
Awaiting the morning lights,
I think about you;
And memories flash
In front of tired, dreamy eyes;
Floodlights of passing vehicles
On a deserted highway.
None still or stagnant,
But forever in motion;
Like seconds in lost minutes
That hovers in your sight
Before vanishing forever.
In that momentary existence,
Within that bright kaleidoscope,
I traverse through my subconscious
Towards my only ray of hope –
You.
I remember everything I thought
I would not;
Memories hang on
Limp limbs to half severed members
And pull on the joint
Of past pain’s flashpoint;
Till memory fades
And the experience returns.
Memories distilled to feeling,
Visions to being
And I find myself seeing
Through the looking glass
Into a myriad world of dead time.
Where you exist with me,
For in those moments
I see you again as you were;
From the lazy twinkle in your eyes
To the last wavy curl in your hair,
Innocently twisted like sweet lies;
I see myself feeling, breathing,
Living.
How do I describe it?
Knowledge fails vocabulary.
What you feel
Cannot be expressed,
The expression can never be felt.
An absent perfection completes art
In its perfect silence.
Silence can be intoxicating.
When memory is drained away,
And feeling dies;
One moment of absolute emptiness
Demands to be filled,
And you have nothing.