My Vow Poem by Praveen Kumar in Celestial Glow

I remember
Yet that day,
Etched in my gut
With blood,
Frozen in my brain
Like death;
It was July sixteen
In dark annals of my life,
Buried ‘neath million layers
Of fall and rise,
Fossilized to dreadful memory
That curdles blood
Even now.

What happened, happened
Irreversibly,
Seventeen days before,
Three days it's since I heard;
It killed me alive,
Turned world upside down,
Never again to reinstate;
I shed no tears
When inner light doused,
I uttered no words
While world blinded,
But involuntarily
Said, I knew it would happen.

It was a bolt from the blue,
It struck like a bolt
And tripped me out of feet,
But took three more days
Till I became alone
In an unknown cell
To dawn all truths;
I saw grief as fog
Descend all over me,
I felt horizons quiver,
I felt world tumble,
No feelings I felt,
I was frozen in grief.

No count of time I had,
No will or desire anywhere,
A living machine I was
Doing painful chores
Neither with nor without mind;
No tears,
Living dead,
I counted years,
Half, one, two, five, ten,
Twenty, thirty, forty years,
Beyond it too, infinitely
Never I see you, meet again;
Suddenly tears gushed from eyes.

Then I vowed,
When I die
In last breath,
I remember you,
Call your name
As my stamp on this life
That you remain live till the end;
It is long since,
Decades rolled over,
And I'm now very old,
You never came;
I remember my vow,
Waiting to fulfill it.