Automaton

Automaton

©Suman Shukla

Sun scorched is this barren plain,

Hot air rises

And burns every soul,

A hell-fire burns in the midst of us-all,

Scalded, injured, in ignominy

All these creatures move,

Bent bodies, stooping heads

With contorted expressions

Is how they groove.

We while away our time

Twisting and turning in our own skins,

Molting it with uncertain whims,

Until that day when Eternal beauties like you descend.

That primordial light before the concept of time emerged

Had weaved but your dress,

Blackness of the times

Before that first light blazed trail

Adorns those wave like curls,

Your personage casts shadows of blissful brilliance

With it suffused is every accursed

Bathing in this heavenly spell.

I am but one of those millions Madam Celestial

Endowed who is with a very special fate,

To know you

To touch and hold

Your very soul

Is how Providence

Has repaid me for all my travails.

It's incredible how someone like you

Will choose someone like me

To save from that infernal flame,

You peer into my eyes

And all my pains subside

Flooded with all that oozing kingdom come,

The wounds heal that very instant

And I, Body-empyreal, an automaton

Become a living Human.