Return of the exile

After years of wandering, I return
to this strange place, the home I left;
forgotten in the land of my birth.

Nourished under alien skies,
I come alone woken by nightmares,
unable to drift back to a land of dreams.

Gone is the mansion, the garden I grew up in,
gone are my people, landscape of my childhood.

None left here to comfort me
through the long journey into light
or nothingness, redemption or oblivion...

We have hardened ourselves, grown up;
no longer ask questions we do not understand.

Is that why we are punished for turning back?

Can't we explode space and time
back to when it all began,
demand to know why we were sent here,
why so hard the lives given to us,
some more than others;
where do we go when our time is up---

Our insignificant lives
tempered by the questions we ask?

Shanta Acharya.