Seeds

When seeds of pomegranates shone like rubies
I ran all over the earth
culling each little seed
and gathered the harvest in my fold.
Each seed a mystery, each a cult
a dancing shadow of a lost divinity.
The myths of goddesses and their search
for the rare initiate
to transfer and hold aloft
a secret excavated from earth,
the sun and the moon, the potentates,
blessing the cycles of the mysterious dance
of origination, growth and death.
And the mysterious cycles had no place
for the love and the sorrow coming in the wake.
Goddesses are immune to human fate
of growing from the cell, living, and ending in death.
Starkly unclad by human faith or by the need to procreate,
they carry on by proclivity
their mysterious game of hide and seek,
causing intermittent change of phase
which the humans  see as seasonal change
and ascribe the names of birth, life and death
and with each change, I go back to the ruby seed of the pomegranate
and try to translate the mystery, and fail
because I was deprived of initiation
into the cult of the myth of the divine earth
who awaits the initiate who will hold aloft the secret of the Goddess in his hand
and scatter the seeds right in the heart of the void.

I saw once a boat

parked in the sand;

the name of its owner was carved on its bark.

The boat which once was a tree.

The waters had left a mark

below where the name was carved.

A name a mark of identity.

I felt the body of that silent boat

when the sun went down and the moon arose.

The sand below my feet

was damp and warm still.

and a boat upturned, lying in the sand.

The briny sand stuck to my feet, lingered on the tongue

and bit my skin,

a stinging sand

and the whistling wind,

and I sat in the sand

leaning against the moist bark of the boat that once was a tree.

I listened to the wind and the body of the boat

whose master was far from the shore,

somewhere fast asleep.

And then it started to rain,

a tropical rain on a darkening shore.

I got to go I said.

I 'll come again tomorrow to the same place

hoping to hear the tales of the boat.

Sushama Karnik (c)

26 June 2016

A Girl In Love:  Image: Courtesy +tanya dimitrova

The cold winds blew
hard on their faces,
as the sun hid behind the clouds,
and  the dust of golden sand blinded her eyes.
The sand that blew with the wind,
blew everywhere,
and in the sheet of dust covering the clouds
as the eyesight dimmed,
she felt his presence
and heard those words:
a sudden declaration of love!
And suddenly again
the wind blew;
suddenly the canopy of the mind flew;
thousands of swallows resting in the heart
fluttered and flew with the wind.
Not knowing if the rapture was sadness or joy
she covered her face in a surprise.
Thousands of swallows broke their cage
and found freedom  in the infinite blue
that shone unseen
behind the fog of dust and the screen of the  clouds
of gloom.

Sushama Karnik   (c)
2015

The call Of The Sea

THE CALL OF THE SEA
Every road leads somewhere.
There ought to be somewhere they meet.
Mountains ahead, deserts to cross,
but oh, this grain of sand!
It does not cease to bite.
When am I to cross the desert, climb the mountains,
flow with the river and reach
the bay where roars the sea?
The fascinating, deep , surging sea,
where I drop my language and learn to sing,
give up all effort to translate the song,
where the sonorous silence rising from my depth
finds its echo in the sea.
The deserts of sands never glimpsed the sea,
and yet the prayers from the mosque strike the appointed time;
remind me of my tryst with the sea.
The ceaseless humming, the droning of an infinite number of bees,
surround my heart,
 and stir
memories stored in the depth of the sea.
Wherever I happen to be on earth,
wherever wake up, wherever sleep,
the call of the sea has to reach.
The hounds of heaven, the call of the tides, rising and falling,
when I face thee, O Ocean,
I can grasp at nothing, nor let go.

Sushama Karnik (c)



Image received via +Souheil Ghammachi 

Romanescoeur Inès originally shared to ☆ Every road leads somewhere ☆ (Discussie):

Draping And Undressing

Jan 31, 2016

Voices, Illusions, Metaphors, Draping and Undressing
Resting squarely
on a single beam,
otherworldly,haunting,
static, still...
the black images cast
on the white screen,
turning smoky, misty,
foggy, dim,
dissolving into vapor, and then
a lucid gleam.

Quiet, deeply troubled,
a revelation, sad behind the resonance,
quietly sad,
then turning to mockery,
lushly green,
metaphors hardly recognized as metaphors,
simply a game,
a revelation, a glimpse.

Again a magician at the top of his game,
tossing a theme into the chaos,
then melting thin,
withdrawing, winding
the loops and warps,
and as I am watching still,
the haunted melody gone in a moment,
leaving a memory
of a voice focused,
assured , powerful,
but out of reach.

A Closed Gate

A closed gate, ornate, elegant, opulent
a spell, a pause, a glimpse
of a remote splendor
that wraps around a lord's mansion,
tantalizing, teasing in its veiled dimensions,
a call for the imagination,
but there the sojourn ends.
You move ahead to a simple homestead,
hungry, thirsty, tired to the bones.
It stands humble, unkempt,
lush green, the tree that holds
a shadow over its intimate,rustic face.
Someone looks, out opens the door.
Every brick in the wall speaks, greets you to a welcome smile drawn right across walls,
unceremonious, warm, it knows exactly
 what weighs on your mind.

Sushama Karnik (c)

We Are Lebanon originally shared the image

A beautiful gate of a great palace in Sawfar
By @sacha_al_aref_photography #WeAreLebanon
#Lebanon #WeAreLebanon

A Golden Dawn

In the golden dawn I searched for you

spreading my wings over waves,
in the purple sky of the eventide
I looked for you again.
It was only as the sky in impatience
turned to me, turned red and you spoke
The reddening of passion had to go quiet
and the sea had to fall silent as it rained,
and every raindrop that entered my skin,
was your being echoing me;
"I am with you all along;
when did I ever go away?"

Frida Caka originally shared the image

the image received via Anna .A