Tryst with Prayer

Was taught to fold my hands and pray

When I was young, back in the day

 

With eyes closed and barefoot

In front of the various idols I stood

With my hands folded, quite unsure

If the couplet I whispered in Sanskrit pure

Had in my life, any relevance at all

Whether God was even hearing my call

Yet every morning I repeated the ritual

I daresay the experience was barely spiritual

**

Years passed, from home I moved away

The childhood habit of starting each day

With a prayer was lost somewhere along the way

Exactly why it happened, I cannot say-

There were no shrines the way there used to be

One at home, also, as more of the world I did see

Religion and spirituality appeared concepts inane

Grounded in reality, I considered myself sane

So I forgot how to pray, and did not realize

That discontentment with my life was on the rise..

**

Living in a land where I happened to be

A part of the religious minority

To a place of worship I rarely went 

My time in other pursuits was better spent

Then one day, in the midst of times that were trying

I chanced upon a small Hindu temple, vying

For attention at the end of a strip-mall

At that moment I heard for prayer a call

Self-conscious in my Western garb, I proceeded

To enter the temple, and then succeeded

In closing my eyes and whispering a prayer

In that moment, I felt my broken soul repair

And I wondered why I had not bothered to pray

All these years, it was as if my lost soul had found its way…

**

Now I pray often, more than once a day

I am a calmer, more balanced person each day

Prayer is an invocation to our own souls, I would say

When you lose control of everything, you can still pray..