I was basking in the Sunlight,

When the beauty of my dreams – ‘Fantasy’,

Was strolling in the broad-daylight.

Was it a trance, a hallucination, a random thought?

I pinched my skin, hoping it wasn’t something I dreamt,

If that was ‘Melody’, why wasn’t she singing?

Where was the leap, the swing, the waltz, the jig?

Why was my Melody, debilitated, frail, and weakened in spirit?

When did the Sun go down in her Life, when there is an eternity?

Could the material world not spare the life of my beauty’s well-being?

If necessary, I would give up seeing the sunrise every-day,

If the universe could just spare the most beautiful of all, my ‘Melody’!

~Sunil Maria Benedict

Bangalore, India