Unanswered

You asked me why I ask

So many questions

When the answers are so few

 

What purpose could it serve

Asking so many questions

And will new answers

Stop me from asking

The same old questions?!?!

 

Why can’t I accept

The answers already given (or perhaps hidden)

For centuries…for eons…since eternity…

 

Aren’t willful ignorance

and elusive enlightenment

riding on the same adventure?

 

I don’t know…

 

I guess I find no silence, no repose

In the posers

you call answers

 

For the same twisted reason

 

 

You get so disturbed, so diverted

By the posers

that are my questions.

 

So there we are

All gesture paused

By an exasperated silence

 

Thought defeated, we now just are…

Sitting vis-à-vis

Sailing together, I realize,

In the same clichéd boat

To a destination known only to silent destiny.

 

An Ode to Softness

A waking blue sky

An invocation to ancient gods on the radio

The trees sway to a soft and gentle breeze outside

And my baby sleeps

Her head nestled and caressed

in the nook between my neck and shoulder

She strings for me this precious chain of moments

With her soft and gentle breath…

In an embrace of re-assuring silence

All of life so readily offers itself

And everything speaks

Softly…

Gently…

Eloquently…

Simply.

 

Unintended

Pen, book and intention

A haiku seems like a good idea

I need to know even though I know

Is this temporary, fleeting?

How must I apprehend it

This totality in existence?

How do I classify it

For the sake of memory?

‘Contemplation?’

‘Boredom?’

‘Living out my purpose?’

‘Existence?’

‘Being?’

‘Becoming?’

‘….none of the above…?’

 

And now I know

Acceptance is active and creative

And now I am

Excited, happy, alive!

Free of all lofty intention…

The Free and the Fugitive

I sat still in my car

Incapacitated by the traffic jam

Unable  to inch forward

My eyes moved up…

I saw the metro crawl…

Above it, a plane flew past

In an open sky

My mind travelled

I visited a childhood memory…

And then a book shop in California…

And then to a time when Kiara would be vaguely older…

And then…

” Door na ja-o… Door na ja-o… (don’t go far away from me, don’t go far away from me…)”

My traveling mind was arrested by this voice crooning on my car stereo

I paused…

Cut short my mental journey through time

And listened out of a sense of obligation

(after all, I had turned on the car stereo to listen to music…)

I brought my mind back to where I was in the traffic jam

With the metro crawling above

And yet another airplane flying above in a vast open sky.

 

In that moment I knew

My mind was vaster

than the vast open sky.

A Momentary Drift

I caught your eye

For a brief moment

Looking at me piercingly

Trying to make inroads to my soul

To get a sense of what lay beneath

My clothes, my skin, my mannerisms, my small talk.

 

Our eyes met

For a brief moment

And then you quickly looked away

Picking up  (where we had left off) the threads

Of a familiar design

Predictable in pattern

Impotent in possibilities

Saturated with meaning

But meaningless beyond its existence.

 

For a brief moment

When I caught your eye

Uninterested and bored

With familiar designs, patterns and meanings

I wondered

About the possibilities of meaninglessness…

 

Lost Property

How dear is my present to me!

Even as it stands imperfect

And flawed

 

I know it. It’s familiar.

I’m drawn to it because it so effortlessly

Becomes mine

 

My present is the culmination

Of the hours, days and years I’ve devoted to

Become me.

 

If I lose it, I will lose all the vanities

That I had with great complexity interwoven with

My being

 

I will stand a ridiculous lie unto myself!

 

My heart will weep not so much

For the loss of people, places, property

Or poetry

 

But for standing disrobed and diminished

Before all that I dressed up

And decorated.

 

The present is rich in the meanings of thoughts

Whose enslavement I have come

To enjoy.

 

Who am I without them?

WHERE am I without them? They’re all

I’ve known.

 

My tormentors have been my only love…

 

And even though I know

That life is a habitually

Late messiah

 

A sleeping savior in a dream state

I can see now that I’m nothing more than

Its dream.

 

A Beautiful Ritual

I see it now as an idyllic moment

This ensemble before me

Unfolding its meaning

Undressing like a new bride

As I sit and watch

As is ritual

The world move by

Outside my window

 

Rains lashing

My silence hitherto undisturbed

is seduced now

By the strains of an effusive piano

Playing in the soul of a CD

…somewhere in the distance

Of a love felt deeply

As deeply as feeling will allow…

 

Men, women and children

Hurry past my frame

Creatures of free will

Now like puppets on strings of rain

They seem beautiful in their vulnerability

Simple in their motives

As they run on surrendered feet

To familiar sounds, spaces and rituals…

 

Is that really true?

Or is that simply my view?

-An idyllic view…

The sum of a subliminal math

Of a memory recalled by a sentimental piano

And stirrings emancipated by an unbridled monsoon

And people running as the rain wills

Randomly. Intermittently.

 

Maybe that’s all there is

Maybe that’s all that takes

To see the world as beautiful

Sometimes all you need

Is beautiful music

A beautiful memory

A beautiful window

And

A beautiful ritual.

 

 

It’s Plain and Simple

Yes…

I would’ve liked better teacups

But here you are

Nevertheless

Forsaken or gifted

Standing before me every morning

 

And so…

Despite a petulant will

Everyday I grow to love you

And everyday

I get acquainted

With your unexpected beauty

 

Love and Beauty

You’ve taught me

Are not mere affections

 

They are the gifts of our attention

Joys that we receive

Not in our hours of need or merit

But in the generosity of our receptiveness

 

They’re never destinations

But journeys of long, slow acquaintance

Of discovering

And getting to know.

This day, That Year

On June 19, 2010.

 

Last evening

While I waited

Still

In motionless traffic

 

I looked out of the window

And surveyed the scene…

 

Gushing water

That miraculously transformed

Into a raucous river

Where there was

Up until thirty minutes ago

A staid, grey asphalt road

 

(It even had a name

so established it was in identity and purpose)

 

The skies were gloomy…morbidly grim

And the rain poured

In an angry embittered attack

Like a hurl of abuses

 

And yet surprisingly

The people were smiling, laughing

Enjoying the stormy weather

Disturbingly and nervously out of rhythm

 

And I saw in that moment

A co-existence of law and exception

Of frenzied activity and unaffected stillness

Of pleasure and pain

Of gaiety and gravity

Of romance and indifference

 

Without principle

And without story

Contained and composed

On a single undivided canvas

 

Appearances begged my mind

For some explanation

For keen appreciation

For some semblance of balance and purpose

For coherence and cognition

In an agreeable reference to established truth

 

But Truth, I realized

Is not an establishment

 

Neither is it a destination

To which we must undertake a pilgrimage

 

It isn’t a charming euphemism

Nor is it a secret

That stays concealed within a cryptic code

 

And it isn’t a promise either

Awaiting fulfillment

In the distant unseen future

 

Truth is in the experience of NOW

It refuses to account for itself

Lest such account become next moment’s lie!

Truth by inherent virtue

Cannot and does not lie

And it does not care much for Reason or Rhyme

 

It is neither old nor new

It disappears as soon as it appears

It isn’t always staid and grey or

Named and established

In short,

It isn’t always a permanent asphalt road.

All or Nothing

Why speak
Of everything the ears hear
Or of every thought the mind entertains

Why must I be dragged
Out of a sense of custom or civility
Into every exchange of dull gossip

Why must I be numbed
Into believing every lame fib
That masquerades as profound insight

How do I purge out
Every toxic thought
That has been dumped into my mind
And now stains everything I see

How do I skim
This scum of ideas
That grotesquely distorts
An otherwise silent and clear reflection

How do I rise above
This discontent with my world
And forgive its relentless assault on my senses

Should I…
Refuse to see?
Refuse to hear?
Refuse to feel?

Would that help?

Why, I wonder,
Must there be all or nothing…

…Gently but surely
it dawns upon me

the meaning of Providence
…Of Indiscriminate and Total Abundance
…Of Benevolent Blessings

And now my mind rests…
Clean and still…
Receptive and silent…

Reflecting –as it does and it must
Inch for inch
Your full embrace.