A Straggler in the Night

A straggler in the night

Night lights glimmer in the distant tents;
pavilions and sojourns in the dark
are warming up.
One by one, randomly, the distance emerges,
slides into the folds of the night;
each little dot, a promise of refuge
for the straggler trailing behind.
A few miles for the laggard to walk
and he will join the fold
of the men resting in the tents
beating the hunger and the tiredness.
Here the straggler watches in awe,
in the silence of the centuries,
watching the march of the history of his land
written in cold and the shifting sands.
The history ranging over time's scrolls
and the locations marked for cartographers:
the straggler should be well aware
of the destinations lying ahead in time, the vistas the morning will bring to light, with the coming of the awaited dawn.
Alone with the sight of the distant tents, their lights glimmering in the dark,
the straggler steals a moment in time
to watch the waves of sand rise and fall.
Riding the crest of the wave
the straggler cannot see himself
distinct from the wave and the sand.
Raise your hands to the infinity
which is trying to speak in the stillness of the land and the heart.
Raise your hands and look at the wonder rolling all around.
What is the mystery hidden in the sand when all around the desert sleeps? And why the mystery,when all answers have been found and stacked away as of no use?
The shadow in the day is estranged by the night, and is that the one, my shadow, my soul, standing there on the distant mound, silent and distant from me?
The sands have stopped humming now.
A long-drawn absence speaks.
Seeking and losing, and finding again what was lost,
the straggler gathers the silence around.
The distant tents may not keep their lights long.
The straggler must stride and reach the tent
before the chill winds blow.

AN ENCOUNTER

 An Encounter

And one evening
sitting on the threshold I saw
a flame,, a torch,.
inside the walls of a lantern
approaching fast
as if on the winds,
a storm-borne, storm-blown lantern
in sheathes of dark.
The lantern was coming
tossed on the storm on the wintry wind,
and I took alarm.
It was surely aimed at me,
to strike, to blow me out.
Before I could flee inside my abode
the lantern came and transformed into a man,
spouting venom
like the tongue of a dragon
intent to kill.
The dark that shrouded the lantern
was no longer dark;
the cover blew.
Inside was everything that was burning yet
and wanted to burn
all that the dragon could ever catch to destroy.
And why me of all,
when all I recall having said to one
was: "Shed light on all;
do not burn, do not scald!"
That was no time ,
no moment of encounter
that could transform
a raving man, a foul tongue.
A time to disappear and walk away
to another realm,
another world and another time
where dragons do not roam about to kill

 Image credit : Fabien Todescato

A STRANGE DREAM

A strange dream it was;
a strange congregation they were,
a group of people heading for the north
and I among them :
a barefoot, barebreasted mother,
an infant suckling at my breast.
They never stared at my nakedness,
since the rigours of the journey and the challenges
 had cleansed them all.

And just as we were nearing the goal
and bracing ourselves
for the last test of endurance,
I heard,
 you,heading for south, had camped for awhile
on the other side of the road.

Barefoot and barebreasted though I was,
I rushed across.
You were not alone; you were isolated.
They, the barbarians were haranguing you
for your heresies
and pronouncing death as I entered your camp.
But before I could comprehend,
their eyes fell on me :
I standing at their door,
barefoot without a cover on my breasts,
frantic to reach out to you.
It was not a sight that lured them;
it was another proof of your sacrilege.
I saw their meaning as they glowered at me viciously.

I stood stunned, suddenly conscious of my bare breasts and empty hands,
and my alienness above all.
I could neither cross over nor turn back.
At that moment I suddenly knew the meaning of the body as shame;
a body, my body, suddenly seen from an alien eye:
it turned into a mass of unenhanced physicality.

The meeting of our eyes in that moment of trauma
was more than what they could understand
in their reproachful piety.
Before they could reach me in my vulnerability
you moved forward and threw a shawl of yours,
and in a split moment wrapped me around and retreated to their side quietly

THE UNICORN

THE UNICORN
In the sepia dusk
the unicorn comes to speak,
the twilight shadows lighten up
every retreat,
the corridors, the trees,
the birds in the nests
and the mind at rest
quietly stirs.
The unicorn shakes
the unreal horn
carried painfully on its crown.
Fabulous Unicorn,
you are no myth;
in the evening breeze
nothing could be more real
than a Unicorn,
its wings and the horned brow,
the illusions and the reality.

PEACE IN WAITING

Watch the path
keep a vigil on the farthest sign
I am on the way.
Keep a prayer in the heart for me
I may need it on the way.
Keep the door of the house open
I may come any day.
With a longing and a dream I rush along
Stand in the doorway wait for me
with a greeting in the heart and a blessing on the lips
wait for me, I come. Till then walk in the light, the only peace
that is found in the waiting for love

Sometimes You Do

Sometimes you do want to, need to,
let go of the light,
sink in the night and dream.
The brightest of dreams
wake up when you sink.
Dreams that stare you vacantly
in the dark are the signs
that you are waking up
to the light
that is all your own,
neither taken, nor borrowed,
neither given, nor extracted.

The light comes from the soul trampled underfoot
the weeds and the seeds
both together
and yet the seeds have the temerity
to raise their heads and move towards light,
your own light.

Image: courtesy : Anna del Vale Marti



 · 

TWO MADMEN

Two madmen sailed on rafts
their faces shone in the lantern-lights,
They did not have to look up and dream;
they looked straight ahead.
It was worse or weirder still,
for they sailed backward towards the rocks
It was darkness, darkness, breaking into light
and something guarded them in their flight.
Perhaps they saw in darkness
the things they had failed to see in light.
Now they thought they could look up and dream
because there was someone behind
who was looking straight ahead.

Light would be lonely without darkness;
who else would be waiting for it?

Thank you +Anna .a and +Amin

Amin originally shared:

 

THE THINGS I DROPPED

As the shadows migrate and the whistle of the wind stops
the search in the grass
for the things I dropped
in the clumsiness, unforgivable hurry,
all that panic
begins to swallow me as the evening swallows the day.
I grope in the dark for someone's hand,
a metaphoric silence half reveals, half veils
my fears of losing once again and for all,
the things I dropped in the hurry.

Enticements of Solutions

Enticements Of Solutions
War-riven lands,
a temporary peace, an uneasy truce.
Catastrophic passions, calamitous love,
spinning of myths, old wives' tales,
mathematical calculations of possible equations
of relationships gone haywire on dreams,
satanic revolts and barred pigeonholes,
holding aloft a disinfected faith,
sermons on the futility of  keeping alive
the already enfeebled will to live,
macabre visions offered on a platter
 to entice into a faith
that leads to death
of the spirit that once was the essence of life,
I have travelled all the roads and came to nothing.
Yet it's a long way,
weary and tired.
of the enticements of solutions
sold, bartered, stashed away
for some future time of the Paradise Regained

Aquarian Song

The Aquarian Song

I The Aquarian, the lost antiquarian,
 sing for you.
Just for a moment close your eyes,
feel the body of the dark,
feel the presence, just the presence,
my presence, close by.
This darkness, a warmth, a love that guards and preserves
the strength, the power, the mankind's treasure,
the instinct of survival, acceptance and growth,
and that constant light
which shines in the dark
upon many a causeless fear,
many a midnight panic,
many an upsurge of vehement passion
flung up from the depth of the dark sea,
the slumbering, awakening, and sleeping again
on the waves that rock the consciousness,
be a witness to them all.
There is a throne, a seat all your own,
and I will be standing by,
my Aquarian jar of water,ever flowing, never dry,
will flow into your spirit, and I shall pick you by
on the wings of my strength, and let fly again
the atrophied organs of intuitive knowledge
once more into the clear sky.
The doors of the old homes, chambers of hope
will open again.
Walk in and out, to and fro,
and see the thread
between the Silent Watcher and his Shadow
grow ever more radiant and strong.

FIFTH WALL

 THE FIFTH WALL

Empty pages, empty canvasses
stare , draw you in.
A willing suspension of disbelief.
The walls collapse, build up again;
the roof flies away.
I lie on a wall
like a cat at noon
basking in the shaft
of a broken sunlight, a broken beam.
Houses, seen against the sky,
in the twilight gleam,
in the aroma of time,
letters scribed
on fluttering leaves...
There are people living,
merging with life
living, feeling inside the veins,
soaking rains, sunlight and the pain
of loving without a name and a face.
The canvas calls them and they flee
in despair; the walls around them crumble
and they startle back, stare back
at the life they lived, no longer a secret;
the willing suspension of disbelief.
Archaeological sites
brought into relief.
The collapse of the fourth wall, then the third,

the second, and the first one is the last fall.
How do I build the fifth
to capture it all again?



Man Lying On A Wall  :  L. S. Lowry
image credit: +Kostas Michalis 

THE LAST RITES

The Last Rites
Away from the bank of that bloody sea
where his descendants fought and lay massacred
by bloodied hands of each other;
their Karma led through the winding maze,
now worked out to the logical end.
He , the witness, the Supreme Lord
who knew the intricate ways of destiny,
knew, now the moment had come
when his own Karma had come to an end,
the reason, the purpose for which He came
simply to hasten the processes of Karma
that found no way
in the midst of the ignorance, the confusion of minds,
in the midst of the long journeys of lives,
relationships caught in the vortices of the essential strifes of the humanity.
He viewed the panorama of His own life
as he sat, his back against the bark of the tree,
laying down arms with which he had killed
in a divine wrath, his kith and kins.
Yes, He was Krishna at the end of his life,
resting quietly and starkly alone,
counting his last breaths
as he sat at the foot of the tree,
shot through in his foot by a mistaken dart
of a hunter prowling in  the dark.
Neither thoughts nor feelings crossed his mind,
the days of childhood bliss in the midst of
the innocent cowherds who did not know
who their playful mate really was,
all the memories of love and war
now erased like a dream out of the sky.

And thus he died, alone and unsung by his tribe.
And the legend I heard was that
some tribals came and saw him dead,
a tired old warrior, too smeared in the face
by dust that had covered the dried up blood.

Not knowing what kind of final rites
the man deserved,
they carried the corpse to the sea
and let it flow with the rising tide
where its destined resting place was going to be.

After days of a voyage on the back of the tide
the body touched the shores of a distant southern coast.
At night as the body was floating in the sea before it landed
on the southern coast,
a priest of a temple on that shore
dreamt of a divine being
wanting to be heard by him.
"Go and seek the coastline,
the first thing in the morning as you will wake;
I shall be there lying in the sand.
Lift me my friend, with gentle hand
and place me on the pyre, give me the fire I am thirsting for all along!"

The morning led the priest to the shore, and to be sure,
there he was lying in the sand!
The priest did what he was told,
holding the sanctimony of the words of the dream
close to his heart through the task.

Today there stands a temple in the name
of Krishna who came
and rested for a while
before the body was cast to the flames.

WHISPERS

My little girl, my love,
as I caress your soft and curly hair,
cradle your head on my bosom soft,
God forbid, why do I recall
ancient memories from lives of other times?
Memories of how I had to fight,
keep a vigilant eye
lest the hunters, the wolves,
coyotes lurking in the dark,
come to pounce upon
unsuspecting trusting hearts--
the memories I try to dust off from my wings,
when I lay in a dungeon
for the crime of using my hearts and wings.
That's not for real now, I know;
you and I inhabit a different world,
with our third eye lightened we must see
and draw the 'ring-pass-not'
for the strangers who try to invade
our sanctuaries and they have
gall and venom which they spit
when ruthless instinct drives them to hunt and kill.
We are no angels come down from the heaven
to save this world, we are little girls who are left
to their own devices in times of trouble
when no help is there at hand
save our wits and human skills
to defend our being and dig our roots
deep into the earth where we are born.

And I say all this silently
so as not to make you hear
the thoughts of fear which make me shiver,
I want to pass on only the strength
which draws me to you and weaves a shield
and give you an armor that will carry you through
without ever having to use.
May your paths be full of love;
the love that will transform coyotes in men
who have their hearts and heads in the proper place.

The Dog And The Dreams

The Dog And The Dreams

In this land of viral dreams,where the seeds have a life that wilts
before a season of growth arrives to carry it in the wind.
I watched from the periphery.
I watched your autumn slide to winter and in the blast wait
for the sunshine that may bring
those who climbed the ladder and flew.
Your lavenders fade, your roses shed
their petals and speak of the beauty
that in fading survives
the blight of winter.
You take your dog to the grocery shop and he waits
patiently in love
when there was no need to tie him
to a pillar or the lamp-post
where he had to brave the winter wind
and survive the indifferent passers-by
on the pavement where life was all a procession on a blind man's street. 

Untitled with a Forgotten Number

All that was gathered,
assimilated;
the pains I suffered in this body
may become the powers I wield in the next;
lessons of mistakes transmuted into prudence,
changing suffering into endurance.
The riddle of love and hate,
the laws that govern, that cannot be broken,
manifest slowly one by one.
After each brief plunge
a diver rises from the sea with pearls
drawn from the oyster-bed.
The dawn waits on the horizon as the glorious sun
squanders his wealth on the crests of waves
 coming unbroken
to the lap of the shores