Among the prolific pages of this maple tree

are some leaves that forgot to ripen with age.

There were spaces, blank and white

where language failed.

In retrospect, miserable failures when the heart screamed.

Those were spaces meant for love.

And arguments upheld by ego and pride

were ushered in. They careened in and spread over;

and sadly a misplaced bookmark was inserted to keep them live.

The damage that such bookmarks do to the life of a book!

In some unfrequented coffee shop,

not in the presence of the sublime sea,

but in some lonesomely crowded coffee shop,

is the space to find the blank space

mistakenly overlooked by the tirades of words.

The miserable maladies of language when language

was oblivious of its origin in the heart

and forced to walk in the labyrinths of the brain.

These days the gorge of the sea scares me with its an insaneness

The sea is not for the writing of words.

It's for reading the forgotten spaces for silence,

spaces usurped by the chaos of words.

Sushama Karnik (c)

28 Dec. 2019.

The image courtesy @fawzi hejazi

fawzi hejaziTimeline

a month ago

Among the prolific pages of this maple tree
are some leaves that forgot to ripen with age.
There were spaces, blank and white
where language failed.
In retrospect, miserable failures when the heart screamed.

Those were spaces meant for love.
And arguments upheld by ego and pride
were ushered in. They careened in and spread over;
and sadly a misplaced bookmark was inserted to keep them live.
The damage that such bookmarks do to the life of a book!

In some unfrequented coffee shop,
not in the presence of the sublime sea,
but in some lonesomely crowded coffee shop,
is the space to find the blank space
mistakenly overlooked by the tirades of words.

The miserable maladies of language when language
was oblivious of its origin in the heart
and forced to walk in the labyrinths of the brain.
These days the gorge of the sea scares me with its an insaneness
The sea is not for the writing of words.
It's for reading the forgotten spaces for silence,
spaces usurped by the chaos of words.

Sushama Karnik (c)
28 Dec. 2019. 

Jun 6, 2016

In a morning mist the shadows

sway, softly stir,

and the wind, hesitant,

barely touches the trees;

Dull, the memories, sharp the pangs

of having to return

to the somnambulant day.

The path in the dew

disappears in the moist expanse of the meadow.

I love what the light will reveal

once the sun is out of the mist.

I shall pray, let the morning stay

even after the mist is gone;

I will accept the light that will come

as the will of God.

Sushama Karnik

12 days ago

 Photo album: Арт

Artist, Karen Hollingsworth

The Mountain, The Grass And Me

The Mountain, The Grass And Me

With a basket laden with the harvest of summer,
 fruits and flowers
and season's delights,
riding through the forest that kissed
the mountain's feet
I stopped on the way
and slumped on the grass.

The Mountain was a hillside,
 familiar with its scents and the breeze.
But lying in the grass I saw it rise
to an eternity in a moment's flight.
I lay on the ground,
close, intimate in the lap of the earth,
measuring the immensity hanging over the earth and me!

Image credit: Tanya Dimitrova

A Cloud Dreams...

The night opens
 a portal in the sky
 and the cloud dreams,
and the stars and the moon
 float
in the cloud's dream.
Galaxies come and go;
the milk of paradise flows.
The cloud imagines an eternity,
and herself, a vision of the star and the moon.

The Jaded Walls

Jaded walls,
the faded paint of the window-frames.
The neat squares of the frame of my mind
respond ...
to the deepening sky.
Close to the window, on the ground below
nestle the house-tops,
intimate, near to my heart.
Lives unfold, shelter the hearths,
the harsh winter is kept at bay.
Many an evening has turned purple
as many a person watched
leaning against the wooden sill
drawing in the infinity ranging beyond.
The darkness came and swallowed everyday
that which was infinite a moment back,
the cryptic purple turned into black.
Standing by this window I learnt to respond,
receive and forgive life's harms;
injuries were never allowed to sink
beneath the first layer of the skin.
At every eventide
a new mood flows out of me
and pervades the purple sky.
When the sky reddens in the first blush
it begins to speak
and reveals the link -
the bonding between me,infinity and humanity

Running Btween Two Drops Of Rain

May 5, 2016

Running Between Two Drops Of Rain

When you came  drenched, dripping wet,
and as you hung your raincoat on the peg, you said,
that you were tired from running between two rain drops,
I wondered how far away were the rain drops spread,
and I threw the window open
to watch the miracle of this rain.
There on the lattice of the window
was a newly sprung wicker of leaves,
thirstily absorbing rain,
and each leaf stood trembling in the rain,
just a rain-drop away in the glistening lace
one from the other, dripping wet.
I suddenly realized how tiresome it would be for a man
to be running between two drops of rain
if raindrops were so scarce and far away,
and if it suddenly started raining floods.