The Constructors

Nose submerged in beads of sweat and taking in long, deep breaths of chilly autumn air, I set my foot abut the trunk of an alpine. Amber rays break through the tawny midday sun at its apex—blanketing the small, lonely yet serenely beautiful town I call home; revealing its classic simplicity in all glory whilst highlighting innate imperfections admired just as much as its untouched beauty running abreast. Eyes aglow and transfixed, taking in the panorama view with nature’s ambient music of a trickling stream afield, striking stridulations of mountain crickets ambushed behind Chir Pines with their soft rustlings and sweet singing of House Sparrows, kindling every nerve in my body while drawing it into an eclipse with my soul.

I feel the gush of wind from northward lovingly caressing my cheek—perhaps having passed through a myriad of solemn towns, happy towns— cities throbbing with warmth and life, districts with heart-wrenching tales—carrying the atoms of every one of them; each with a history and unique stories shrouded behind walls of penurious quarters and seaside mansions. I murmur a soft greeting; and allow it to carry an amalgam of me as well while it travels beyond and forever—for my story and history too, is universal and unshared by none other.

Soils beneath me, having outlived tens of generations by aiding its undying crutches to man—withstanding every stomp of great haughty emperors and frustrated mendicants as well as trots of foals now lost and extinct, while mothering unnumbered seedlings. As the months dance away, the winds would bring the air of spring. Colonies of poppies crumpled in buds await their bloom; and when the season arrives, they would unveil the peaks of their beauty—and then wither while their off-springs scatter away with the winds, unhindered and unquestioned; unknowing of the soils before them which securely held the roots of their parents. Somewhere further away, I too sprouted; but blossomed in the soils of this town. But my descendants ripened elsewhere. Nature and Man—both beautiful creations with courses of life remarkably synonymous to each other since the beginning of time; yet only one of them can be hailed as triumphant in adhering to Providence’s laws.   

I stay a little longer—dew lingering over my shut eyelids.

In contrast to the present moment, perhaps every being including I come into contact with brief awakenings that inevitably creep in and leave a whisper—reminding you and I of our odd existence amidst a moving picture with its surroundings and people in unison. If not oftener then at least once in a lifetime. Or maybe oblivion forbade conscious to confront reality: that is at first, unbearably ugly to cope with; but once seen, it cannot be unseen for it is the epitome of the winds’ and soils’ pleading chants: Oh Beloved, look beyond—beyond!

A chill runs down my spine, springing a train of thought.

Many times, we may have been asked—where do you belong? Some may distinguish themselves with their land of birth. Others, the land they grew up in; and some, the land that bred their birth givers and forefathers. Oh, the fickleness of humans. When disclosed, it unforgivingly constructs an identity; while the innermost true being within gasps, every single day. Shadowed and shackled beneath constructions of higher edifices of plastered personas within, muted amidst strings of ringing and persistent ad infinitum utterances of "how one ought to act here" or "the personality expected out of a person like you belonging here" and "the way you are supposed to think or believe in" destructs the obscure yet incandescent facet closeted between crusts of "the known, the forecasted and the recognizable"—unconsciously embedded in us by countless convergences. So man wonders: if I had blanketed my land of birth and instead, roped myself to the land I flowered in—could their attitudes have softened? If, say, I told them that I belonged to the far-away land of my primogenitors where they lived instead of the land where I bloomed—could I have galloped on my equine through life’s spheres with my head held high?

Man precariously hangs on branches of a world offering empty solace— scurrying frantically hither and thither; seeking consolation through a sense of belongingness, a trusted harbor—some root, somewhere.         

When we sail through various seas of the earth, tread along its soils and feel its air brushing our cheek—all the same in every soil and sea, we gain a perception; that perhaps, the key to the "closeted facet" laid in the hearts of men for themselves rather than the hands of other men—for the earth is one and we, as its scattered children utterly compeer in dignity, deserve to feel at harmony with our mother in whichever lap. Color, heritage, creed and nationality ("The Constructors") were never at harmony with the "closeted facet" for they always found unrest and a rift with it since the beginning of Adam, our Father. The Constructors' innate motives live within us; for they have engulfed us concretely. They include, confining the capabilities and drive of an individual by peeking in their history of forefathers and evils committed by their creed; deciding to freely suspend or narrow down expressions of optimism and support only after analyzing the color of a particular's skin; labeling an entire nation "rotten" based on the actions of only a mere handful.

The inner facet is innately distinct with its signs of existence reeking through us—from varying fingerprints of billions that came before us, live among us and are yet to form ahead of us, with none ever alike; to the vast variety of faces, each one sculpted by the Higher Power Himself and shared by none other in generations that had ever flashed ever since the beginning of the Universe and until it lives. Miniscule, complex genealogy with its elaborate and perplexing convolutions passed down from a manifold of bloodlines of people to you and I—with a part of every human living within our flesh-and-blood, is none other than actual veracity that we were meant to carry the layers of human races collectively as they breathe within our flesh-and-blood.

Such, and countless other signs display the brilliance of the inner, indistinguishable jewel that lives at the heart of the soul. The only Constant. It thrives; but only barely. It may arise as to why, or how with the answer to it being quite pellucid: Mankind collectively and mutually allowed one another to build, polish and parge identities for one another. And then, inevitably become each other’s prey—with the predator being themselves, to their own selves; shattering individualism. In the end, none gain. How woeful. Such is the universal tragedy of the short sweet life of you and I.

You, I and the poppies were born with a gift—a gift of flowing with the winds of life and spring unhindered and unquestioned—a gift of an unshared and distinct identity, unanchored to the lands, seas and skies of this world for they belong to you; and you and I belong nowhere but everywhere.

Mankind collapses, quarrels, terrorizes and breeds seeds of injustice and of disharmony—big leaders, menial workers, loudmouthed women, bigoted men, arrogant adolescents, every one of them. But Nature thrives as One; as well as intrinsically indifferent just as a mother to her children. And when the golden grains slither from Man’s hourglass, then Nature, having been entrusted with a principal duty by Divine Providence to its twin creation, shall bodaciously execute it without even the slightest of miscues since Adam till the very last of his children; admirably in obedience to the laws of the Universe unlike Man— who too, always had one devoir to the former in return but chose instead to violate and be deemed an aberration to the Universe.

Enclasping every corpse just the same— knows none, or rather pretends to be unknowing of its fellow’s “background” or physical characteristics: blue-eyed, brown-eyed, black-skinned, white-skinned, Nordic, South Asian—all the same to the soils, executing exemplary impartiality; for they assumed we were untethered and indifferent, too.   

Where are The Constructors, now? 

image copyrights: https://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com