A Mood :Beaautiful and Calming

Apr 15, 2016

A MOOD
The beautiful and calming
becomes cold and lonely;
familiar landscapes
become blase
after many summers have come and gone.
And yet the alleys
grey and sunny,
dark and rainy,
the decks with a spray of dewy stars
hold the reins of my heart.
Summers play tricks
and the world closes in,
around and ahead in a mirage,
as when after years of silence someone speaks
not in whispers, but in wrath.
The slothful summer glances at the old casuarina tree;
it shakes languidly.
Beneath, a rustle of feet in leaves,
beautiful and calming,
cold and lonely
is the sound of casuarina tree.

SILENCE

SILENCE

Laboring day and night
in salt mines, wheat fields, or
hauling the catch in fishing boats,
they sang a ritual song; perfected the rhythm of life
and at the end of the day, they
thought of the perfect conversation they might have,
but kept it for another day.
And thus went by the life,
Silence read it all.

The Dance of Shiva

In a long pilgrimage to the shrines of Shiva,
we land in the lap of Nepal,
Pasupatinath, the Lord of the bestial world,
The beast , the animal, is naturally bound
to the terrifying immanence of Time,
the Kala.
The Protector of life and the Lord of the city,
the Bull of Shiva, sits at the gate of his shrine
It is then when you come and see him there that you know
you have finally arrived at the entrance to Shiva's abode.
You feel the presence of Shiva
blazing like a forest-flame,
leaving you thirsty for a drink of the water
flowing down from the crown of his head,
from the Ganga rushing down in an immense torrential flow.
The melody of the dance of his wild , eccentric rhythm,
throws you off balance,
and in that moment of chaos you learn
the need for the balance between the two worlds,
the symphony of his relentless song of the sweeping rush
and the stillness needed to stay on your feet,
the stillness at the center of his dance
of ephemeral cycles of death and life and life and death.
In his world the dead do not die nor the living live,
Shiva: the Imperishable!
Shiva, ablaze like a million suns,
in the light thereof you know
that the Unreal is possible because the Real is Real.

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The Coffee-house

On a bright and sunny morn
the coffee-house speaks in the warmth of grey.
Where are all the people gone, without the name and the place?
The tables and chairs all laid out with grace , as if of yesterday!
But here is where I would like to have
my moment of solitude and loneliness,
alone with a mug of coffee in my hand
and a newspaper spread out before my eyes
for crossword and a puzzle for the day.

THERE ARE ALLEYS

There are alleys and rows
of little homes
I scarcely know;
they are hiding in dreams
and come back to light;
not a dazzling light,
but lanterns swinging
with the insomniac moon,
and half asleep I walk
wondering at my shadow,
wondering where it's leading me.
I, like the finite, indrawn world
of alleys, anonymous, winding
indiscreet, a human universe
of ignorance and folly.
The night must be gloriously dark,
secretive in shielding the sorrow and the joy,
of her denizens, disturbed and mysterious,
happy, sorrowful,
petty, magnanimous,
the night is everything to all.
And I feel an exquisite peace
in visiting the alleys I have not seen before.
I must have been a sleepwalker
sometime in some life in the past.

image via sem xtz

Metamorphosis

Apr 19, 2016

METAMORPHOSIS

I amble through the woods
keeping, marking the rhythm of Time
on the gnarled branches, the scars left in the bare barks
of trees .
The bells toll, like some pure metal
immersed in water and ringing still.
A metamorphosis
latent, sings
in a monotone I fail to hear for a while
in the impetuous rustle of the wind.
It's happening somewhere silently.
The sound of a temple bell
how it floats
on the ripples and the wind that sweeps
over the river's thin expanse.
Metamorphosis,
not immortality
is the burden of the song that Time sings.
Leaves that fall
cover the scattered seeds
flowing down among the pensive trees

THE QUARTER MOON

A quarter moon
shedding light on
the quarter of your mind;
and the remaining half
always in the dark.
A band of stars
a wagon of lights
trailing behind,
abstruse shadows
on the rush of clouds
on the glades of forests
where you weave
and graft structures of meanings
out of a spool of thread
uncoiled from an enormous brain.

Gigantic shadows intervene.
I lose my shadow among the jostling trees.
The snare, the lure of the shadows receding
like images seen in elusive dreams.

I look desperately to hold
the magician's hand.
That was the only voice that could speak to me
with the intimacy of the water and rain,
with the intimacy of the silence under a cloud that is dripping
a language of the infinite sky
over a leafless tree.

It was all in the magic of the hour,
the tree, the shadows and the rain and the sky
and me trying to grasp them all
in the open palm
and then clench the fist
and break the spell of the mystic hour.

Image credit: +Darlene Walsh

Sharing some thoughts with the moon...

A Sea-shell

A Sea-shell

A sea-shell comes and rests on the sand
washed awhile ago
by the silent tide in a moment of an awesome uneasy calm.
Incredible are the tones that blend
and incarnate on the corny surfaces of the shell and the sand.
"Bones and blood and the tides that roam",
have inscribed the story of the sea and the sand,
ages in the history of Nature's saga
of eternal rounds of life.
And we are all of it, a part and eventually the whole of it,
"in our bones and blood and the veins of our being"

Bird of a strange paradise,
how you descend upon the shallow tide
with ruffled feathers and a quiet grace!

The dawn is the time to wake up and face
the new day with your secret strength.
Let me watch you dance with all my days.

Bird of paradise, let me match
my footsteps upon the shores
of your immaculate white sands.

Ruffled feathers and a quiet grace,
you have dropped a message in my lap.
I read your presence in  every wind upon the virgin sand.

A breeze from an unknown land, peace from a healing song,
your melody drifts on the waters here;
I listen, and drown in the scent of stillness that wraps me all around

Bird of Paradise

Bird of a strange paradise,
how you descend upon the shallow tide
with ruffled feathers and a quiet grace!

The dawn is the time to wake up and face
the new day with your secret strength.
Let me watch you dance with all my days.

Bird of paradise, let me match
my footsteps upon the shores
of your immaculate white sands.

Ruffled feathers and a quiet grace,
you have dropped a message in my lap.
I read your presence in every wind upon the virgin sand.

A breeze from an unknown land, peace from a healing song,
your melody drifts on the waters here;
I listen, and drown in the scent of stillness that wraps me all around