A Rather long Story 2nd installment

On the rostrum, seated in three compact rows of auditorium-chairs were about twenty children, mostly girls, ranging in age from about seven to thirteen. At the first signal given to them by their instructor who looked all-pervasive because of her imposing manners and strident voice, the children looked at one another in bewilderment. Some of them opened their mouth, but were still afraid to articulate the sound, not sure if the others were ready to share the effort. Some of them tried to be clever and just put on an ingratiating smile. With exhortation from the coach to start and be audible they mouthed the words without the necessary feeling. The coach now thought it best not to waste time on further exhortation, blew a note on her pipe and the children raised their hymn-books above their heads and started singing in unison. They sang with the unsentimental innocence natural to their age. I had never heard the hymn, but it had a soothing quality and a healing effect; I wished it not to end soon.

Listening, I drifted in thoughts and scanned those young faces absentmindedly. The child nearest me was in the front row of the group. Well, not exactly a child; she looked about somewhere between fourteen and sixteen, with straight black hair cut to shoulder length, which stuck around her forehead because wet, making her face look languorous and common. But as I continued to listen, I noticed that her voice was distinctly superior to others. It was sweet-sounding, and because it was the surest, it naturally led the others.

However, the young lady seemed to be indifferent to the activity she was engaged in at the time because I saw her controlling an overpowering yawn once. It was a closed- mouth, lady-like yawn, but her nostrils gave it away. Her eyes had no expression at all except perhaps that of being unimpressed because of over-familiarity. Once or twice she seemed to scan the people in the audience with a casual interest that did not amount to curiosity, except as if she was counting the heads.

FROM THE SEA TO THE CITY

FROM THE SEA TO THE CITY

The sea, the steady bass
the sea, in rain and sun and streaks of light,
haunting, obsessive,
rough, calm,
in tumult, serene.
The sea haunts
once you listen
to its incessant breathing.
It does not leave.
On the pavement when it rains in the city
its waves come lapping at first
at your feet in memory,
and then they come lashing,
sweep you off your feet,
and the city is far away from the sea.

Tracing each footstep
following in the sands,
an exhausting walk'
exhausting, not tiring,
from the sea, my own familiar childhood sea,
to your city,
so complex, cerebral, breathless!
But I tried hard not to forget 

how I started this journey by the sea, 

then a labyrinth, then a streak of light,
and then just following, not hunting for a clue, just yielding to the flow,
a backward flow to your origin,
Who are you, I should not ask.
Certainly an uncommon being.
From my metaphoric sea,
to the interior monologues in the alien city :
the journey was long but illuminating.
And I arrived here and stopped,
a solitary pigeon pecking grains,
I like being that way, entering your city
in speechless anonymity.

Image courtesy :sem xtz

NEONS

NEONS
The morning mist clears. The beginning of a day
brighter now behind the hills;
the neon lights are out,
the last vestige of the night.
In a single sweep they wash out
the night's illusions of grandeur.
In a city the nights are brutally bright;
their illuminations darken the heart.
And yet I choose them by the night,
a compulsion , a need.
The yellow lights on the walls, the reading lamp, then the night bulb enduring the dark,
the night , my night of the heart's solitude
is scared of the overwhelming floods of lights
washing away the cordiality, the gentle intimacy
of the unlit ways where street lights shine
few and far between

Image Credit +Latif Z

The Ropes

Vultures flew and eagles watched
complacent, satiate, from mountain tops.
Vultures swooped, picked up the prey and bolted back to the sky.
Blood in rivers covers the lands,
fire balls rain,
devastation where the land was green.
Centuries wrap around like ropes,
centuries of slavery of the meek to the power of lance.
The ropes of slavery around the eyes
hide from view the little dove
that dares to fly
and sends a call to the blind
to follow the ear and catch the note.
The signal reverberates in the silent air.

Image Credit : Latif Z.

My Maker, Rush In

In the stormy seas
the colors bleed, merge, and the dye spreads
over my days and nights..
The dyer's hand will never cease
to weave the magic in the swirling waves.
The dancing wings
and the coaxing birds,
and on their back I ride,
an intoxicating chimera of light and dark,
the sun and the moon
and the stars in the night as pearls in the wind.
My Maker, rush in , give me a hand,
and row this plummeting vessel till the end of the sea..

Image Credit : +Suma Ro

Spring Is Coming

Spring is coming,
spring is coming with songs.
In spirals the sun and the moon will go
beckoning all to join
Let none lag behind.
The sun, the truest leader of the ever hiking humanity
knows that the spirit of leading is not in running ahead
of those who follow the blazing trail
but sometimes to lean over and hold
the hand of the weak lagging behind..

Hands

 HANDS

Memory of love on a battlefield,
an anomaly,
it can kill
faster than a spray of bullets
.
Those hands I see,
I can feel them breathe,
silent without a word,
a gardener's touch,
a painter's brush,
even when dismantling,
a careful thought.

What did those hands have anything to do
with guns and cannon and fire?
And how long did it take me to see
the power that made them survive and save
a heart that concealed its real, its true desire in life?
The heart that mocked, laughed
a suppressed sardonic laughter,
a heart that lived
for an estranged daughter,
a heart that despised the world,
and at rare moments said softly,
"I remember"?

Smile for the camera....