Sunday, September 27, 2015

Through The Woods: Azure'14 Winner Entry 3


- A Rhymed Parable          

The forest lulled in morbid silence,
With the ice broken by wolves’ dismaying howls and vipers’ hiss.
Dark clouds hovered silhouetted by the latent moon;
The night and the woods turned towards him with malice.

A hiss here, a howl there,
And the ceaseless exasperating sound of crickets;
The anathema escalated to be smothering;
Snarled around him the savage malevolent thickets.

Constantly changing seemed the wild labyrinth,
By a devilish dominion as if, were the woods imprecated.
Yet, he trudged on, cautious and determined, though ‘fraid;
Faith and strength, kept him, in the face of impediments, invigorated.

An ingurgitating monster as the forest closed denser on him;
The pandemonium of its tranquility sent him a frenzy.
In collusion did the tribulations strive,
To debilitate his will and turn it dizzy.

The gray wilderness and the darkening heavens,
The ghostly swooshing wind and the mongrels which wail;
Premonitions painted the picture grotesque,
Exacerbated the incessant gruelling trail.

Alas, the torturous afflictions took over him;
His obstinacy to move on, now did moan.
Suffering and fear knew no bounds,
Evil spirits in the wild shook his own.

A barb in the wild pierced his flesh;
Yelped he in excruciating pain.
Moved as he in agony, a speck of light shone;
A hallucination perhaps, he thought, an ephemeral hope in vain.

Recollected as he, his senses, realized,
That the light was rather persistent.
His strength, after the hapless trail, waning,
Was riled up; yet again, was he exuberant.

Up the mound he climbed, through the thick foliage,
Towards the stimulus; robust, though languish.
Dragged he up his bleeding limb to find the Great Perhaps;
The pain itself ceded in making him relinquish.

Ostracized by the hunger, thirst and agony,
Did he traversed up to the top, exhausted; 
The nerve-wrecking escapade though, bore fruit;
Beyond the hillock rose a city beautifully illuminated.

Ecstatic he felt; the scene a toast to his vision;
A shower of respite after the scorching hot season.

From behind the distant hills, peeped the sun rising;
Obliterating the darkness, now in its dormancy, reitiring.

The soft wind sang a song melodious,
And the aviary chirped in chorus. 

Towards the heavens he looked, to bow to The Almighty;
For  having fortified his will, to win over the adversity. 

A tiny drop dropped, touched his lip first;
The elixir, quenched his persecuting thirst.

Snuggled he himself, 
In the grass, a tinge of yellow and green.
The cool downpour washed away 
The trickling blood, his body did preen.

Following the spate of anxiety, fear and unrestrained spree,
Felt he the serene and immense, a conqueror’s glee. 

Following the toiling labor was the contentment and thrill;
Invincible seemed the barbaric wilderness, but so was his will…


MANSI JAIN

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