Deja Vu

Suddenly the quest for whatever grinds
to a halt, and wakes
the mind to its loss. The Indians,
burdened with their lives' possessions,
troop off into the dark, homeward,
to chappatis and chai, and I forget
why I have come so far.
A masterstroke of oversight has landed me
in the middle of nowhere, an interim
of lost connections, an unplanned pause
between journeys, the cold desert air
gripping the old bones of the mind.

As in a dream, one is flying from lifetimes away, the open space
dissolving all hints of direction,
driven by mixed impulses
to lose and to find, and doubts
suddenly stagger the heart, freeze
the dreamer in his tracks,
the infinite pause in the air,
as if the will to go on
is snapped like a twig
by a careless step, one wakes
to a suspension of time and space
in an indefinite postponement of purpose.

BoeyKimCheng, DejaVu.


maybe I don't want to go after all.