Playing Solitaire

I come from a crystal world
fragile, delicate, shiny, bright
Reflecting out rainbow hues
from each plain ray of light.

I know my magical touch
and see the wonder spread
As I add ethereal glints
from violet to red...

I drop then into the earth's womb
amongst darkness and rough-edged rocks
Every carefully etched side dimmed,
ravaged by the knocks and shocks!

In a world unlike the one I've known
feeling like a misplaced shard of glass
Every tinkle, I fear I'll shatter
Yet hoping for the nightmare to pass

I protest, rebel, pray, despair
then begin to crack bit by bit
When I look inwards and find it
My answer, my solution, my strength, my grit

The rocks don't seem so fearsome
darkness does not disturb my calm
I proudly evolve, beautifully transform
The crystal I was, the diamond I now am



(Yes, I'm learning to play my best hand at the cards I was dealt. Enjoyed using 'solitaire' in the three meanings of the game, the solitary status of the player and the rare diamond state.)

Happiness

It's strange to see
that right from birth,
every creature
that walks this earth
thinks of doing little else
than procuring happiness.

They taste it once,
become an addict
and the rest of the story
is easy to predict.
Besotted to its wantonness,
the siren that is happiness.

But when it's woo'd
hard and long
it can defeat sorrow
no matter how strong.
Zealously guarding like a fortress,
the strength that is happiness.

At times, when the search
turns out in vain
leaving man suffer
and wallow on pain,
remember, the heart is the address
of the vagabond that is happiness.

Yet, when man relentlessly strives
and puts in endless hours of toil,
suffers much and truly aspires,
nothing can his success spoil.
He gets life's rewarding caress
in the form of happiness.

Once charmed,
it becomes a slave -
one that is faithful,
dedicated and brave.
Time and again, prove its prowess
the knight that is happiness.

It justly goes
to one who deserves,
about caste and class
holds no reserves.
Believes in equality, no more, no less -
the democrat that is happiness.

It turns life into
a meaningful game
with struggle as the rule
and fulfilment, the aim.
The essence of life it does compress
the sportsman that is happiness.

And yet, man,
the fool he is,
will search far and wide
and still miss
to espy happiness
in his own heart's recess.
Ignorant and unaware,
foreign skies does he scan,
the hyperopic that is man!