Scattered Poems...

Sad Days
Sadness has quaint ways
stelthy feet
sneaking in quietly... quietly
Spreading like honey
on each thought coating all
In dazed, dull perception



Can you Heal?


Broken China
Torn wings
Soul feels shredded
Ever danced on broken glass?

Slash the trusting heart
Numb senses and smile
Work- rest- work
Things will be fine

Don't weep or else
You hurt us with those tears
Who asked you to trust?
Not us, so dance
But slowly on the shards
And remember...
Don't weep
Its not tasteful
Not ladylike
Just smile
And dance slow
And yes,
You can let the blood flow


God

I want to ask you
How can you stay untouched
As children suffer
They say that your will is most potent
Then answer me why the innoc ent suffer?

Is it your wish to see suffering
Is it so essential to existence?
But, explain to me those that yet have to live
Why they die?
Hindu says past birth

Still I question
Is it your wish to see misery
As they say, not a leaf moves till you wish
Is this your wish then?
To see children starving, brutal rapes and murders

Animals are a kinder lot then
tell me it is not your wish or will
that wanders the earth like a possessed fiend
Give it a name, so that I gather
That leaves tremble without your will too...
And devils roam unchained by your will

My creator cannot have such wishes I believe
Unless there is some rhyme or reason to it
Explain to me this pain
And that you do not will or wish it





Evolution
From green of grass to that of matrix
Fields, farming, sweat and toil
transformed to hum of the AC, heat of the PC
A hollow tree bark, sleep, an open book spread on the chest
Ah the colours, the pop ups, and all that's yet unseen
A life away from life, a sedation, from realities, from self?
Like a dream, life away from life
Human dream grew wings and evolved
A silk cocoon it wove a net
And drawn across the blue planet
Is this world wide web-bedspread
To dream, to dream on days and nights...



A little breeze kisses my lips
And warms my heart today
It speaks of the sweet winter morns
And dusty autumn days

Of swirling leaves and tender petals
And white clouds on sunny noons
Pale damp moments plucked randomly
Pressed in my diary days

I long to lie in a field of daisies
And watch the shadows of the day
Just lie and laze and watch the play
Of the blue stark sky and white clouds

And hold a hand next to my face
Drowning into seamless sleep
Of ripe days and nights
And Jasmine white moments
Fragrant and deep!


Life passed by me
And, I was lost in plucking out thorns
As nights come to me I draw my stained hands over my eyes
I weave dreams to forget the thorns embedded in flesh
Morning comes to me with its naked bruised body
And I bury my trembling dreams quickly to pull out more thorns
The mornings teach my nights that there are no dreams
And my nights keep silent to retain their secrets,
of a little beauty and a little hidden happiness
Morning is restless to pour its wisdom on my night's dreams
My night resists faintly, the stark brutality of survival creeping in
Mornings strangling my nights
Reality drowning my dreams
Is that life?

See!

My soft feet have turned coarse
I wandered from shore to shore
Eyes that sang of love and sweetness
Are tired and sore.

Still I wore cloaks and painted the face
to delude the self creating false grace
In passion, in beauty, in mind
every moment engaged.

A moment then came to me humbly
spreading it's simple wares
A cloud, mild sun and a gentle torrent
See ....feel.

Not a thought in mind, none in heart
just the breeze, the flowers of white fragrance
It took to take the I apart and prod gently saying-
See.

Just see and be
Just see and be


Blossoming

A Winter song in my heart

I lie on well-worn carpet of memories

Gazing at the empty sky

For Spring is soon to blossom

Far off, the frozen stars wait...

With bated breaths

To know the fate of our love

And the first stirrings of warm sweetness are my secret

They will wait a zillion years to know

That I loved you

With dazzling sun weaving breeze into my hair

And a warm moment of our love

Thawing the frozen warp and weft,

A secret blossoming zillion years across the frozen stars



To the yellow moon I say
tell me today,
To the gentle breeze I say
say what I say,
To the soil and sky I pray
take my thoughts
And plant them far away
Where a field of daisies
And my dreams stay.


In the toothless smile of an infant
In delicate veins of green leaf
In gurgling of a torrent
In the rustling of dry leaves

Reflection of eternity
Caught in a mirror
That cracks
And shatters the moment

In to fragments
That escape thought
Still, make sense
Not to mind
But to heart

Forgotten Poetry...

If I had the depth of these blue waters
if I had the mildness of the white clouds
If I had the colour of your soul
If I had the purity of white snow
If I had ember of your eyes
If I had your thoughts like dew on rose
Would you think of me as I do
Would you be me as I become you?



In the open sunsoaked fields of your soul
let me run across the windswept grass
soak in the young orange rays of the sun
Kiss the bright faces of nodding sunflowers
drape the blue-green of peacocks in my eyes
drink the mist from your eyes
In the open sunsoaked fields of your soul
Let me still my fluttering butterfly heart!

Have you seen gray clouds on a moonlit night
And wind whispering sweet nothings to midnight flowers
On such a night when i crave absolute silence
Tie a boulder to this body
And let me sink into the blue -green depths
Breath that ties me to this body, drifting
Heart rest now, let the blood turn blue
Then i will surface a new soul
From one depth to another
No more body, not a mind
Just absolute bliss just absolute soul

Have you seen gray clouds on a moonlit night
And wind whispering sweet nothings to midnight flowers
On such a night when i crave absolute silence
Tie a boulder to this body
And let me sink into the blue -green depths
Breath that ties me to this body, drifting
Heart rest now, let the blood turn blue
Then i will surface a new soul
From one depth to another
No more body, not a mind
Just absolute bliss just absolute soul

Sleep come to me a necter in jeweled vessel
Sleep come to me a vision in smoky veils
Sleep come to me as i be innocent again
Sleep come to me to remind me of my eternal sleep
Sleep come make me dead to this world
give me dreams of past and future
To make my present rest awhile.

silence, thick like the dusk enveloping the mountains
Of green young moss on ancient rocks
Of placid ponds heavy with floating lotus
Of dust settling across the sunbeams like gold
Silence, thin like breeze on high snow clad peaks.




2007

Time

Time woven with autumn leaves whispers on lonely paths
An empty winter noon brimming with echoes
Moments, thoughts weaving time with green shoots
Warp and weft of silver noons and silent nights
Time woven, then frozen in memory
A cosmos floating in the blue of eternity...

Who am I?

We speak of water conservation and mostly water is a commodity used with caution in Northern India. Suddenly there is a lot of water every where! No need to conserve as the raging rivers threaten to submerge more and more villages and towns in their wake. Clouds have pitched their tents in the sky and refuse to budge mostly. If the weak sunshine streaks the robust hibiscus in my lawn, it quickly sprouts three or four double whorled red flowers, opportunities! We all wait for them! A bright magenta rose swings like a happy child in cool breeze and Earth is like an over fed child, calm and lazy, not even bothering to sprout a few stray grass strands. The chill shrub has shed all the tiny flowers it was sprouting and a crushed onion that I had pushed into the soil with my toe has dissolved in the mush. Mango tree has a sodden bark and sparkling leaves. Nature it seems is too powerful, these months it used to be sweltering heat and this year it feels like Winters! One earthquake and whole villages and small towns vanish into the belly of this live Earth. Like a vibrant, willful mind this Universe works. Hindu scriptures repeat again and again that Universe is within us and we within the Universe. Microcosm and macrocosm are entwined. In a way this is the most beautiful thought as when we drop all the resistance, the world and all that appears external being a part of self, can there be a more relaxed state of mind, heart and body. If everything living and non living is us than what a peaceful Universe it is. No element is outside the self and therefore no friction, agitation or resistance!

Reading about an old eighty-year-old man it felt that there is much beyond our understanding. Such sages have always been in Indian subcontinent. They broke the gross link of mass and energy and fed directly on the all pervading energy. There are various energies all around us only we do not know how to tap into them. But just sustaining on the energy is a short term end goal. The bliss seems to reside in realizing what we are doing here as a speck of intelligence absorbing, assimilating and internalizing the stimuli? Why are we doing this? Even when we appear very primitive with our short History of existence as a race, there is simple beauty about us, just like that rose swinging in the breeze. Maybe this innocence that shine forth now and then is the only reason why nature allows us to live on this planet that we have vandalized so brutally.

Haze and Comprehension...

Since the illness three fingers of my right hand have turned dark and the skin has become thick and gets wrinkled when immersed in water. It is almost as if death had touched my hand through this illness. I had to take out the two rings I wear and even generous massages of cream is not helping.

Soil is wet and giving under the feet, just too see how much it gives in under my weight jumped on one feet , landing on the heel making a little impact on wet soil. A yellow butterfly flits through the branches waving in wind.

Walking through the mall, watching families enjoying meals and window shopping strange thoughts converge on me like tiny arrows. Is this all that life is about? Little enjoyments, an outing in the mall, an expensive meal, a nice dress rustling against the skin? Stupid thought! What is one supposed to do with the hours and moments? Rear children that came through the linear progression of life. I know of a dimension though that takes one away from this run of the mill packaged happiness, that is meditation. It is another plane altogether. The difference is one is with the self, no stimulus from people around, just the self and cessation of thoughts giving way to a stillness like that of a moonlit pond. A pond that spreads and spreads to envelope the being. The physical senses dropping like autumn leaves in a breeze, silently. It is kind of having the opposite of the conventional or traditional sense of fulfillment through things material.


Sometimes how strange it feels that we experience and translate these experiences and are so eager to share it with other humans. How lonely is the existence, it portrays even when we are always surrounded by life.

Comprehension


Sun in the sky dipping the horizons in butter yellow
Blowing breath over the Earth
Birds painted in the stark blue, diamond silver wings
Life condensing over the land,in seas
Tadpoles in the puddles swim in the drizzle, limbs congealing next to placenta
Grit of soil, delicate fragrances...
Becoming a part of me till the sun expands my lungs and filters life
Hair beneath numb fingers, turn copper
Under the butter yellow sun slanting through the wood and leaves...

Krishna

Just now the lawn is being dug by the laborers, they have dug deep and soft soil is strewn across the place. There is a chubby little child with silver amulets strung around the neck. Jayani gave these kids her colouring books and colours. Later, she was admiring herself in the mirror wearing the white ruffled top and blue jeans, she says" mamma, do I look alright?" I cupped her face in my hands and then placed a hand on her heart, this was time to instill a fact. I said till you posses kindness in your heart here, you will be the most beautiful face. If the heart is kind there is always beauty on the face. Am thankful she asked this and seems she did take the meaning seriously. Someday when my grand daughter asks her the same question, she might be able to draw on this security of keeping kindness in the heart.

Yesterday, we were watching this dance drama on Krisna, as Janamashtami is nearing these festivities about Krishn's birth are peaking. Bhagwat Geeta is 6000-year-old epic and it is so contemporary that it can fill one with tremendous zeal to live and fight most difficult circumstances. Krishna is Lord Visnu's incarnation. In Hinduism, there is a trinity of creator Brahma, preserver Vishnu and destroyer Shiva. Vishnu, it is believed, takes incarnations to establish righteousness. Krishna is the avatar who broke all the rigid rules of the society and in the battle of mahabharat where the five Pandava prince were denied their right to land, encourages all kinds of foul play to get even.

Draupadi, the very strong female character surpasses all present day feminists in her courage and conviction. She is Krishna's intimate friend and also wife of the five brothers, who take turns month-wise to enjoy her company. This woman makes sure that her five husbands go to war with the deceitful Kauravas, who cheated in the game of dice and subsequently tried to defile Draupadi as she too was used like an object in the game of dice. She is the enraged queen who is dragged by her hair as she has been won by Kauravas. She berates her husbands and denounces their right over her, claiming that a married woman is not a thing that can be owned. How many women in today's world be so forthright. Mostly all over the world there is just exploitation in all the interpersonal relationships and no justification is ever demanded for all that is wrong.

Sometimes these epics magnify all the things that we take as normal in our existence.