...that inkling of darkness..

...sometimes, the inkling of darkness is as welcome

As the tiny bat that takes to the twilight

For all that daunts, the doubts that deign

I close my eyes, the night pulls its cover ...

Somewhere, a star winks...to say it’s not over,

Not yet,  for all that daunts,

Somewhere, there is a tiny bat of wakefulness

To let me see through the night!

I need to walk...

I need to walk that thin ledge;
Even as fear runs deep as that canyon;
I know not, where lies the edge
But I need to walk, to know the threshold
I may stagger, stumble, even slip
but I learn to shed my load
When I have to walk
Each step, a milestone, to have passed the past
I need to look ahead, till I reach the end-
Around the bend
To the drop off, which looks to the horizon?

I need to jump, to make that plunge –
From the earth, to let lose those strings –
that  bound me in love and pain –
I need to free myself  from that abyss
Even as I look down,
The plunge, as bottomless
But I need to jump
To float, to fly, to learn to let go
I may tear in two,
Or lie as shreds
But I will rise anew
From the earth to the ether-
 Like  the becoming
Of a bird from a fledgling –
To the whole, a new being!

Those grey strands…

Those grey strands of my hair

Stand out like glistening streaks How they remind me in a mocking way Of aging , the inevitable, Of the beginning , When you are born crunched, crouched, cramped To unfurl, grow up, to flourish- The lustre, the suppleness, like the bloom of spring Every time, I fell in love, I broke apart, or I found my being, I sought to fulfil a duty, a wish, a want Every day, every time, What I had borne, what I had birthed, what I had shed, The breath that was like the wild wind, To sweep everything away, Its whistle that kept blowing To keep me on its wings, never to tarry awhile But even the wild spirit seeks its nest, someday When age catches up And you slowly start to crouch, crunch and cramp Yet again, you are back to where you had begun I see my own reflections - the suppleness that once was To the sagging folds of my skin… Or the black bouncy cascades Receding into grey strands, as their sheen fades Yes, what once was, will never be; Everything that ages, everything that withers To fall back to the earth Let me learn to shed in gladness, Embrace this change- those gray strands The silver streaks – let me braid them In a new breath, slowly, surely, wisely; Let me age, to accept what I become?

To the “Brutus-es” that come and go

Ah! this hate, the anger
The cavilling of the Brutus, the betrayal,
When beneath the cloak you find the dagger
Ready to strike you at your back
You may not die, you would live
But those wounds that seemingly take eons to heal;
Like pincers they remind, time and again
Of the “other”, the Brutuses that come and go;
To leave their mark, the victory that is
The loud clarion of your anger and hate –
Their doing to undo you –
then to march upon the ashen- the ravaged
Bereft of the calm, your being turned savage
If you could see, what you have become for the Brutus
Than what you would have been,
The “I” that can be unfazed, unhurt, if it were let to be
To tell, to teach the “Brutuses” that come and go
Let their daggers remain beneath their cloaks,
But when they strike,
It would be the unseen armour –
In the “I” that resolves, the resolute, to resound
The struck would be but the Brutus, with nowhere to rebound?

Those four walls...

What these four walls behold;

They have stood tall

To hear my laughter, my cries

To have given me the shelter

Against the gusts, the heat, the rain

These four walls that house my thoughts

My heart, the hearth, the heather

That I tug them in an embrace;

The tether that would never let me part

I yearn to grow roots within those walls

Never to let go of those moments,

Unknowing they creep upon my own stillness,

Just as surely time crawls

That no wall can ever stand tall

They crumble to set free;

Every being that moves on

No roots that grow,

When the seeds dwell in your soul

Beyond those walls of the mind

The universe that beholds –

The crust of my being, to crumble

To liberate, my becoming, the bliss to unfold

Let me live this life

Its only, when the suddenness jolts;

Are we shaken from our moorings;

Till that, we root in a sap;

Whining, wallowing , waning;

Through the want, the wish

That is never granted

We seldom look beyond;

and drain out, in our endless battles;

the conflicts; the cavilling; the coveting;

for what the other has;

That we ill-breed into that sap of living;

We deprive ourselves of our being, the bliss

That will come to be;

If only we could cherish each moment;

Live to the fullest, a heart full of content;

We could learn to fulfil; refill our lives to the brim

So when the sap dries, or dies one day;

In its own uncertain way;

The uncertainty will not torment

Nor the bereaved to lament;

For there can be no bereavement in death;

When life has lived in a spirit, the soulfulness in no dearth

When we embrace the earth

To embark on a journey beyond;

I need to live now

To become the sap of a new life;

a new beginning and the newness in every breath!

The autumn leaf

That which once was, the lush green

To cup the vivid hues of youthful spring

And bristle in the caresses of that gentle breeze

The nature in life, the spirit anew

The rhythm of love in each birthing moment;

Tender, supple, wondering like a new born

To live, age and die, one day;

Turning into that lone autumn leaf

Swept by the wild gusts

Yellow and brown, paling;

Shrivelled, shrunk, seeking

To go back to earth

To nurture yet again, the seeds of living

This cycle of life, of the past and the present;

The changing colours, the shifting shafts of light;

That enlivens at once; or entombs all on a sudden;

Like the fallen leaf of autumn

Shedding the skin of its past;

To embrace the ‘now’

The ephemereal it is, what meets the eye;

Beyond, are the roots of the soulful that never die!

The winter never lasts…

The numbness that stays in the frozen time;

The icicle that hangs low from the barren boughs;

the winter that stills every breath of life;

as does this pain that claws and clutches;

like the creeper, winding on a dead rot;

wresting out the sap that never lives;

or the wrought of times that have passed;

the squeeze that sucks out life into numbness

unmoving, like the grave tree sunk into stillness;

but as unending as it may seem, this spell of winter

or the cold spikes of pain to poke like glass splinters

it does tear down, with the wisps of the cold wind;

the waft of the icy maiden; the trails of a blizzard;

to set free, these thoughts frozen in time;

those crystals will break one day to melt into the river;

if only I could open up to the wind, let go;

I would find myself flowing into the streams;

My being, to gush into that fullness;

The becoming, the living for “now”?

The saline splash!

I see those waves rolling in;

From the deep blue of the skies;

To the white of clouds,

What comes ashore;

In that foam of freshness;

The waves that splash and spray

Those smells so saline;

If they could take away

The past to go with the receding waters

So would the pain;

To dissolve into that vastness of the sea;

And then let that joy to live up to that moment

In those frolicking waves that lap up to me

They carry no memories, irate;

Nor do they stagnate;

Like those wisps of clouds;

They live on the surface, till the moment lasts

From the ripple to the wave…

The circle of life that goes on;

In those wet sands, that cover my feet

None can stay; none last in that fleet;

They flow with time, so need my thoughts

to stream through in those patterns

to become the saline freshness as they return;

there is none so true and real, than that moment;

what of the pain or tears that lament?

I need to feel washed away in those waves;

Like the breath that tears free;

The breather in the becoming;

When those waters splash on me!

The Neem tree of summer

It’s the scorching summer,

Whose flames dance in a spirit;

Fierce and fiery, this summer heat;

That the living shrivel or shrink;

Or burrow beneath the earth, in a wink;

But I see the lush neem tree;

In an aura of coolness;

Amidst the fire;

Like the soothing salve for the searing burn;

Drinking in the heat, the fury of the summer sun;

Its sap that soaks the sullen moods;

Those leaves, bright green that glisten;

To remain radiant, like the emerald, the elixir of life

In those tiny neem leaves,

Tender yet potent, its power to heal;

The harsh, the heated, the harrowed;

The neem bears; to be borne in summer

Of the cool summer breeze, it’s the harbinger!

Those waves of the sea…

Those waves of the deep blue sea

They foam in that flurry of wavelets;

As they surge to the surface

this fury that rises and falls

Before it retreats into those depths

The tiny ripples that waver on the surface;

The writhing turbulence, the wrath to faze

But deep within, the flowing current,

It is the calmness that pervades

the oceanic depths none can stir up..

if my life too would seek a path;

away from the fringes of the mind

to look deep within the being, the balance to find

the core of nature, to be fluid; despite the crumbling crust

to flow with life, in every soulful moment.

Let me recede into the deep blue

along those waves; let my boat sail far;

the bliss to become, in that pacific, none can set afar?

Happiness to seek?

I sought that smile of a child;

The gay abandon of its laughter;

That moment of joy, which I grope for;

Lost somewhere, to someone;

Tied to some unknown tether;

Every tug to pull the strings of my heart

To make me wrench in pain or cry in joy;

Yet I look outside, everywhere in search of that string;

That bond that will bind me to happiness?

I see that child again;

in that moment of playfulness

squeals of joy that rise high;

like a fledgling bird, which has learnt to fly;

from the earth to the skies…

it takes the thought of freedom;

to liberate oneself, to let go;

to break free from that tether;

to know, the ‘being happy’ is bound by none

It is that home in my heart;

Where the hearth glows

The life that breathes, lives, and cherishes

the living moment that could be

nothing more but just ‘happy’?