- Moments are the unit by which we measure our joys and sorrows
Before happiness and beyond the moments of ecstatic joy lies either indifference or sadness. Our achievements, no matter how mighty or startling, are condemned to lose their charm, their worth, and their substance. Sometimes it happens sooner than we expect, other times later than we’ve imagined. Happiness, contentment and peace of mind are most-coveted, most strived for, most-cherished emotions a human can experience. However, there are few catches. They come, stay and abandon us. The existence of these beautiful emotions is fleeting. And when they depart they leave us in an abyss.
Moments, it is said, are the unit by which we measure our joys and sorrows. There are moments of completion we want to last till the very end of eternity. They don’t. There are moments we know will kill us for once and all, they don’t. Moments on moments pile up. We remember many, we forget even more. They are born; they prosper and perish within us. We may revisit them. But never can we relive them. Their beauty lies in their fragile, mortal presence.
Our achievements, no matter how mighty or startling, are condemned to lose their charm, their worth, and their substance
All the good things in life come to an end. The perfect moments do exist, but this is exactly what they are- moments. Moments; passing, fleeting, dying and never returning. Once lived, we visit them in our heads. Imagination colors them, selection hones them, and time blurs them.
Many among us have felt in life moments that are so complete, so flawless, so fulfilling that all we crave for afterwards is ‘The End’. The bliss we find in those sacred moments, the peace of mind, the fulfilling emptiness and knowing that nothing perfect will ever come again makes us crave death. And death does come. It comes and takes that moment away. We live another day and then another and then another. The void stays. We just learn to overlook. The wait continues. Memory, when it comes to moments, is a devil in friend’s guise. It throws us in the sea of nostalgia and reminiscence when we are about to harbor on a new path.
I believe that someone before us has already jotted down something that sheds light on all we experience. Whether it is life, death, war, want, love or anything else, a person has lived through them, survived them, penned them down and immortalised them.
All those in love or ever were or ever will be read and savour the following poem cherishing the moments long gone and moments waiting ahead:
The Saddest Lines by Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, ‘The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.