Sylvia Plath And The Bee Box

SYLVIA PLATH AND THE BEE BOX
Sylvia, with bees humming,
 and you were stung to distraction,
a path leading
you
to annihilation,
you stormed through life,
an Ariel singing in a crescendo.

Your path soared in the mystic sky,
lonely, abandoned to unsung heights,
you wrote, feverish, in the vortex
of you brief life.

'The Bee Meeting'
where you fought to save your  identity,
and finally surrendered to the tide
that rose
and claimed you with its killing ferocity.

No erotica, no frugal delights that keep a housewife floating
on the surface and ride the tide
was ever the answer to your quest for what you were,
a seeking after an unseen shore
 after the ocean
has exhausted its ravaging force

AFTER A LONG DAY"S WAIT June 18 2016

After a long day's wait the magpie came.
In a misty shroud it sat on the finger-tip of the dame
Tales from afar of winter's spell,
a forlorn autumn's golden trail,
tales of deserts where sullen winds
blew hot and cold, the warrior clans,
and in processions of camels
how the night felt the indifference
of a powerful prince
and how the flowers wilted and died
long before the morning sun
came to lift the spirit of the world.
And she listened, fascinated
by exotic dreams and alien fears,
her own heart ignorant of any such strange
bewildering winds that sway lives
in dusty storms.
Bird, are you tired in the wings?
Your vision is drunk on the misty clouds
drifting in the lap of the ocean and the canopy of sky!
Tell me all that you have seen! I have covered you in my warmth
A shroud of mist covers us both
and I can see you in the light of my inner being.
Tell me how the censer burnt,
tell me how the candle held
in the burst of the light of the sun.
Tell me about the perfume you carry
on your strong and delicate wing.
Hurry up bird, do not tarry
the dawn is waiting behind the hill
and the twilight hour is ending soon.

Image courtesy : Ish

Wander Aimlessly

WANDER AIMLESSLY

Let us go there , you and I
when the evening touches another sky,
a dreamlike memory may slide
across our hearts
to unite with the archaic, ancient moon.

let us slumber on the shores of a faraway land
in a sheer nostalgia
for a memory of a life we have never lived,
for an escape from the falsities we never believed.

These are the days when a lost thing in the sands
is miraculously lost and found in another life, another land.
My life comes floating on the wave
which I did not know how to ride
in this life I have known and lived.

It comes alive on the wings of a bird
who cradles it in its beak
like a new born babe about to cry.
Do you feel it too as the bird alights on my shoulder
and the flutter of the wings unfolds the doors of an imagined past?

Do not wander alone on the shores for the conch and the shells
to hear the sound of an ancient sea
carved on the empty insides
of those deep grooves
holding the memory of the past.

Invoke the magic portals of sleep,
slide into the dream with an open eye.
A whole world of a historic past, civilizations arising ,
their decline and fall
will incarnate before your eyes,
asking us to recognize
the edges and margins where we lived.

We have picked up the strand of this life from there
which perchance we may carry
into another time and another land,
seeking answers,
and losing them again
and starting all over the saga and the quest.


Image Courtesy +Anna del Vale Marti

SLEEP AND....

SLEEP AND

A night of fatigue,
a night of a raging storm and fever.
The eyelid flickered when I went to sleep
with a thin blanket to keep away the chill and the wind.
The eyelid flickered,
a token, an augury of something to happen,
some sound in a distance,
I sniffed in the wind,
a touch on the forehead to calm down fear;
'Know that the fever is caused by fear'.

Sleep, such a welcome dream,
the dream a cloud dreams.
The sleep comes before the dream.
The sleep comes to spread
a narcotic peace
like someone standing close
to take hold of the ship bouncing
on the unrest of the choppy sea.

Image credit : Tanya Dimitrova

when we plumb the deepest core of our being

A Lamp Among Ruins

A LAMP AMONG RUINS

Feet unshod, blisters in foot, someone walked here,
a frenzied heart!
how else would you see
this lamp
among ruins
lit in a raging storm?

Every dust particle records
the print
of prayers
uttered
in the silence of wilderness here.

I'm sure somewhere is
a running brook
where someone dipped the hands
and watched in wonder
the water slipping through the fingers.


All along the path were idols of clay.
Each one must have been
 worshipped as God.
And if a shining pebble
was sighted on the ground by chance,
must have been picked up as a diamond,
a memento of a journey to light a lamp.

 A red , a fiery red of the forest
has crept upward and wrapped around the bark,
the only live witness to the hands that quietly lit the lamp
in the shade of the flame of the forest tree.

Image Courtesy Nikhil Maurya

One two three four,
I started counting them on my way galore.
Five six seven eight,
and I began to lean under the weight.
Nine ten eleven twelve,
and I found they had a depth which I must delve.
Thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen,
their  perfume and light began to burst in.
Seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty,
and they brought in mind memories plenty.
A pause, a shade, a touch of grey
cuddled in the lap of green,
they spoke in a thousand tongues,
a field of the wild, frosty daisies
on a random Sunday morn.

Somewhere My Love

May 9, 2016

Somewhere my love
the gold will be melting in sea
and here on the green periphery
stars will gather to greet,
and dance in the lake
with lilies.
If you see then one in the shadows
watching the lilies smile
cover not your face, let the moonbeams caress
your brow and spread the light
all over the rippling lake.

Somewhere in the desert
the caravan will shift
and the sun will shine on the immutable sphinx.
Be sure to watch for the signs of change
as just for a moment the sphinx may speak.
In an instant flash of lightning.
you will traverse the seven seas

The Infinite Night Of Shiva

Maha Shivaratri : The Infinite Night Of Shiva
From a grain of sand  you reveal an infinite mind, an infinite heart;
you  : The Shiva, The Shankara,
the serenity, the peace that does good to all.

The ranges of the Himalaya,
grey and white
are your matted hair,
the maze of walls, the labyrinth wherein swirl
the waters is the adolescent Ganga, virgin, pure.
With abundant grace you don
her dancing waves, the brooks and the streams,.
the rivulets light. You wear upon
 the crown of your head
the delicate world of creepers, branches, foliage green,
glimmering rays  of gorgeous sheen.

And from the woods upon the top of your head where beauty dwells,
my glance travels down to your forehead and stops,
dazzled by what I see :
tongues of fire, a holy pyre,
leaping up, alternating
between light and dark
and light again,
until the eye can no longer blink
and I silently shut them to store the vision
of infinite wonder, infinite glory.

The vast expanse of the desert lands
is you forehead now,
an open field where the fire burns
ceaselessly.

With the nightfall comes the time of love,
Shiva's love;
and the crescent moon arrives.
Where is the wilderness gone?
Where the fire burnt, now the divine blue
pervades your being.
Moment to moment I live and love
and dip my petals
in your waters deep: the infinite Shiva,

the infinite love of all the beings!
The Infinite Shiva, The Infinite Love of all beings

THE HARP IS STILL

The harp is still, the wind has gone silent on its wings.
Long ago, the footfalls on the fallen leaves have
held their sound back into the sack.
Where did the harper, the wind and the leaves vanish,
in the shadows that do not speak?
The sun is harsh and heavy is the wood's long-drawn pause.
The silence is its own melody,
and a remedy too,
a much needed respite,
 a tranquility
 away from the noises of the market-place
 and the tolls of the temple bells.