The Mirror Says It All

I shape and size, tall & taller
My head in the clouds, I aspire
Neck deep in dreams, I build to thrive
To scale the heights, I need a ladder
Piggy-backed on Nature
Cement, sand, and mortar now stand transformed.
The higher the walls, the higher the price
The stronger the walls I build, the more impermeable I become.
The more transparency we seek, the more we want to keep out…!
I lose sight of the ground that holds my foundation.
My roots, in my scramble for the sky.
So tall that we cast shadows on ourselves.
From random to ad-hoc, from organic to systematic
From retail to wholesale, we mass produce factory-style.
We destroy, to build.
Habitat, forests, mountains,
Must make way…for a Mind-full of commerce.
Our Math is lopsided.
Architecture is a simple, numbers game.
Where we can’t leave nature alive
So, we try to domesticate her at home!
Because, I forget, the sound of water
Running down the river, I try to make it flow.
On the podium -- poolside
With the fragrance of trees now packaged into the air diffuser
Scenting my senses
I strip down the mountains.
I crave for the warmth cut from seasoned timber
That takes me to a doorway that I must now lock
It’s not my fault, it’s just my biophilic mind
Greys getting greyer, melting into the concrete
With each sunset a deeper shade of doubt
At every dawn, we nose-dive in again
Deeper into the abyss
Cruise controlled knowing not,
When to stop, when to go slow.
We still long to see the flamingos take flight in the morning light
Yet we want to occupy their beds with our fancy 3 BHK abodes
& a lopsided view.
Buddha’s enlightenment is a reminder
That we will never have enough.
And between all our skewed lenses
We will still want a place, far from the madding crowd
Burrowing and borrowing, we steal space as we ‘mine’
In a mad scramble to outdo ‘theirs’
...when did we start drawing lines, building walls...?
To make arithmetic parcels... of mine and yours.
Staking claims not knowing...
The bounty of the whole planet is all ours!