Where Is All My Happiness Gone? Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

I want to be happy,
Like I was before.

I want to strolldown my village lanes
Chase the sunlit shades
Race my heart down the woodland.

I want to stop where in the open sun
the wild flowers glitter in insane scatters of colours,
And bees mounted with yellow armours of pollen
spin their crazy ways home to the dripping honeycombs.

I want to see life scream with joy,
The blue sky
And those flimsy skeins of mist,
Those gentle fingers of mystic threads passing
In between the leaves,

Dewdrops wink
thrushes emitting their metallic rasping songs,
The black birds yodeling.

I want to see the trees sway and shiver
Hear the leaves strum interminably in the frolics of the childish breeze,
I want to hear the village valleys echo
With those transcendental sounds of silence,
The temple vesper's bells shake the drowsy evening.

Those are the happiness
That money cannot buy,
Freely given, served each morning on the wings of fleeting sunshine.
I take them all home
And in my room
With my pen at dusk, add a few stray streaks of moonbeams,

Make a concoction brew for the muse to blast off.
This is my own little brand of happiness,
Where greed, envy and hypocrisy have no place.

And when it is bed time,
My hearts revels in the richness of sheer purity
Like crazy fireflies dance dance, dance all night
To rise to the glory of the morning wonders.

Those who know that silence has a voice
Louder than those crude ears could hear,
Could see through the endless secrets of God's own treasure troves.

But oh Lord where have they all gone?
I am a prisoner,
A caged bird
My wings are by day becoming harder
I cannot reply to the dare and temptations of the blue sky,

My body heavier
My eyes dull.
The village woodland is tainted.