The Fourth Tense Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

A train’s window view yields you an enlivening panorama
No home theatre, no Imax screen gives you as much drama.

The tinsel movies are edited, raucous and patchy
The railway slow motion vision is virgin and plenary.
The passing show
Through the window
Is open and fresh, soothing and stimulating
Not congested, straining and suffocating.
It gives your mind a free play of imagination
The other two enslave you by their sensation.

So I fall for the rail-borne show
With its enchanting variety landscape
Not the mawkish and mushy cinemascope
Which bombs before the train tempo.

A train moves into the time
Carrying your mind in tow
And turns
Each present into a past
Each future into a present…
A wonderful space-time minstrel
With a unifying tense!
With bus or plane no such sense
No such thrilling view
No such déjà vu!

[Feb 04,2009: : Hyderabad - 500 056]