On the brink of oblivion..... Akram Sidiqui

On the brink of oblivion.....

Akram Sidiqui 

Golden-coloured  and tremulously fragile, I am

A trembling filament of a wavering branch 

Belonging to some evanescent, time-forsaken tree.

Termites, with their clandestine hunger,

Have already unsheathed their ravenous fangs

To gnaw at the subterranean sinews of my being.

Ah! A capricious gust, intoxicated with wilderness,

Could in a single whim consign me to oblivion.

Yes, a woodcutter prowls the periphery, 

His appraising gaze, austere and calculating,

Traverses my rings of memory,

Measuring my marrow for the pyre.

Nearby, a murmuring rivulet ,

Deceptively gentle in its silver cadence ,

Perseveres in its quiet sabotage,

Eroding the very earth

That cradles my precarious stance.

Poised upon a vertiginous incline of destiny,

I repose my faith in fortune’s inscrutable decree.

Around me, my fellow denizens of this ecosystem

Appear, in subtle and manifold ways, adversarial ,

Each survival a silent rivalry.