Finding Balance

By Tharun.S

Ignominy labels Inebriation a vice,

but scant does the drunk care,

he loiters, a westbound compass in one,

and a glass in the other, unabashed.

Ignominy shouts, “You’re a disgrace!”

and the drunk retorts, “Bah! like I care!”

and trots away, a gallon in hand.

Ignominy wonders, seated on his noble steed,

“When will he realize the fault in his ways…”

As the drunkard walks under the night,

whistling tunes as the drunk folks do,

Joy finds herself following the drunk, bewildered

reason unbeknownst to Joy herself.

She asks the drunkard, sheepishly,

if he knows why she follows close

so close in pursuit, as if they were tied.

The drunk responds, still whistling,

“The same we are*hic*, but you are swell,

One can never have too much of you, 

hic but me hic , oh well!”

Joy stops instead, puzzled even more,

one quandary solved but another afresh.

The drunk marches away, still elated somehow,

carrying a barrel, strapped to his back.

As he walks away trudging and slogging,

his eyes hazily make out Reason, an old friend. 

Bespectacled and wise, she calls out to him,

in a solemn tone, “Oh Inebriation, you fool!

Find your footing and take my aid, 

for the more you fall, the more you lose…”

The drunk does not hear no more,

his ears have fallen off from his shoulders,

his eyes have stopped seeing stars,

yet his legs did not fail him.

He moves past the mirage of Reason,

and slowly treads through the town

past the house of Depression, she whose

company no one would not want.

His compass leads him to a lone hilltop,

with luscious meadows and clear streams.

He puts down his glass and looks around,

As he sobers, thirst plagues his devices.

He runs to a pool, his senses return,

cups his hands and peers into the water.

A looking glass to his self, without judgment,

In earnest, and in good virtue it peers.

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Discipline is known to be virtuous,

he is known to be dutiful, but

scant does he care about words.

His actions were not to entice Fame.

Fame felt betrayed, all she had done,

he threw away, for his goals and himself. 

She jeered, “You will never attain

what you desire so!”, but the nobleman, 

jogged on, uncaring and unbothered.

On his right the nobleman carries,

an eastward compass, and a dagger on his left.

He paces along the town-walls, focused,

yet slowly Indolence creeps, peering over his form.

Slovenly yet enticing, void of limbs,

he beckons, “Oh dear nobleman, yawn

cease at once, yawn a minute you wait, 

the time you will gain.”

The noble one brandishes his dirk in reply 

sharp, not to cut but to deter, and

Indolence drags himself away, still,

unbothered by shining dirk, rather,

too languid, too sluggish to persevere.

The nobleman marches on, upright,

his steps echoing a rhythmic tone,

‘Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut –

another is pulled to the sound.

Joy, elated joins the virtuous,

free from her earlier predicament.

She asks him, “Could you see the iridescence?

Smell the blossom? Hear the spring? Or

touch the shimmer in the clouds?”

But no, the nobleman cannot feel,

He only fears the weight of his sword,

losing his footing and shallow breath.

The nobleman walks past her visage,

unstirred by her beauty and good,

for all that drove him was unblemished

ambition; for him his end was grace.

He trots past mountains, hills and valleys,

past even Solitude who was his close friend,

his sword becoming great with each step, his thirst greater.

He is grey now, truly noble, truly virtuous,

close to his dream, close to attainment.

Alas! He could bear the burden but not thirst,

and he stops, at a pond, perhaps a lake.

He cups his hands and gazes at the reflection,

and it looks back, regret, a vice.

By Tharun.S