Soul Search Engine

Soul Search Engine
( by abhigyan & mrinal jha, extracted from the book of the same name, copyright 1995.registered with WGA, west, California)


It’s early morning -
I’ve brought my tea
To the table
And am waiting - to
Discover the burdens of the day.

There’s something
In the air
Today, I feel
I can catch the
Whiff of it -
If I try
And strain my blocked nose.

Haven’t put
The lenses
On, so I can be sure
Of undivided attention,
For once I wouldn’t want
My senses
To let the scent down -
For it seems to
Tingle at the base
Of my memories -
Trying to pry open the blocks
In the nose,
Forming images
The eye will never need
Contacts to recognize.

It’s a junction.
Where the tracks are
Never ending
And the signals
Switch from red to green
To red to green
In isolation -
Yet in tandem,
Bringing motion
To rest
And rest to motion.

But what stuck then -
In the mind
And what’s stirring
In the soul
Now,
That the smell is catching,
Up with the slowing speed
Of the smoking chimney,
On the two
Finite parallel lines -
Is the lone
Engine’s
Silhouette, as it
Brought the carriage
To stop on the platform
Number nine.

Embark,
Disembark
Was the name
Of the game
People played in my
Nostalgia,
And then it was time
For the whistle to blow -
Flags to wave
And take the story forward.

It’s a special thing,
This our memory -
It remembers - only
That which carves
A niche and discards
All that’s worth its place
On the side of the way.

And so I saw the engine
Detach from it’s bogey
And strike out a lone furrow
With the simmer
Of fire inside the steel -
As the dark coal burned
And spread its flavor -
The ashen steam, searched
And found its outlet
Driving the pistons to speed -

The engine hammered along
Now as if on a mission -
Along - the same two
‘Twain shall never meet’
Lines, that somehow
Seemed now -
To stretch and join
At the horizon -

I took a deep breath
And internalized
The aroma in the air,
The same breath that’s
Come to haunt me
Years later this morning,
Seeking to burn the blocks
Of darkness, within
And force the gray doubts
Without -
Surge the self beyond being
And steer the wheels
Of my Soul Search Engine.