To possess requires so much effort
To enjoy all that there is-
none.
To become rich requires so much effort
To be enriched-
none.
To solve a problem requires so much effort
To watch its passing-
None.
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.
