There Are Times Poem by Ananta Madhavan

There are times when one is bereft of thought,
Rational or fancied,
A sense of being voided in mind and spirit,
Freed from sense of duty, social or private.
At such a time one lapses into nescience,
Drifting with the current of tidal waves,
Beyond the bonds and bounds of Self.
Is this negation?

One cannot find the words, but one may feel
Like a passenger cramped up in a railway coach,
Half aware of the fleeting scene, the sad suburbs,
The curls of smoke from run-down factories,
The people going somewhere or nowhere;
And minutes out of that rustic station
The fold on fold of paddy or scrub and bush,
Long stretches of montane-grassland or
Meridians of steppe, or snow-piled wasteland.

At such a time, the only hold may be the Self.
But if the void of Reason turn meaningless,
How can the traveller be sure he or she exists?
Is Reality an absolute consensus where the persona
Remains a unique entity with a mission to survive?
Can the sceptic dissolve a presumptive Reality
As the Rational in which we live? Or Is it
An inborn delusion or illusion, which in Vedic lore
Was considered ‘Maya'? A goddess of our pantheon.
Nihilism may be an iconic solace for daring to believe
That we exist before we exit.