1
Pull yourself together
Birds are bound to fly away
What sorrow in that…
A few traces
Remain with you
Use those
To live by, with resolve
History sees only remains
As living evidence
All else is lies
Rise, wipe your eyes
Gather all there is
Behold,
With vestiges of memory
To fill your lap
A poem has arrived at your door
2
Far reaching
Inward gazing
Such a heart
Be yours
Inward reaching
Far gazing
Such a vision
Be yours
Lofty seeking
Deep viewing
Such roots
Be yours
Deep seeking
Lofty viewing
Such a summit
Be yours
3
The pot kept in the living room
Mother and father, to anyone coming and going
Exhibit with pride
The viewers too, expressing astonishment
Devour the pot with their eyes
Bearing great-grandfather’s name with pomp
It amplifies the very existence of our lineage
We don’t have a photo of great-grandfather
Mother and father haven’t really seen him
There’s no question I could have of course
And yet he shows up in my mind
With his spectacular achievements…
The steel dabba that mother had brought just last month
The one with the lacerated rim
She had remarked this morning
‘In just a month it ceased to be’
Hearing her utter this one sentence
I myself was sliced in two,
Overcome by a deathly sensation
4
A life endured, endured to the brim
Into a universal form becoming
As the river burst its bank
It raced devouring down all being
5
A life burning, burning away
Smouldered into a half-moon cinder
Even the wood of the glowing embers
Blossomed into a peace so tender
6
A life fading, fading away
Dregs of oil in the lamp remain
The wick burnt fiercely and yet
Darkness consumes the flame
7
Bearing substantial bits of the remarkable
I stand at my own door
Then comes to sight
A bottomless well
With the bits in my hand
I must fill up that well
Even as I feel this way
I sense an unnamed fear, of something
I backpedal utterly
In such behaviour
Are spilt away
Those substantial bits of the remarkable
Such bits don’t come to hand habitually
There is of course an acute awareness of this
And yet the eating of mud persists
This serving for the devil, the next one for me
The next doesn’t arrive though
The devil doesn’t depart though
Where those bits spilt
There now have sprouted
Star trees
That are only visible from afar
The fruit dwelling in whose shade
Have rotted and fallen
What shall we do with all this wrenching wonderment?
8
Poetry flows ceaselessly
As blood in a body
But its group is not to be examined
Lest it slip away
Just like from Kamsa’s grasp
As Yogmaya the potent, escaped…
9
The sea’s sorrow | only the sea knows |
Everyone sees its | vastness ||
A tiny little fish | dredges the water |
Saddens it | every moment ||
Unspeakable | unbearable |
Poignant pain | roaring ||
With the river | a heart-to-heart |
She has merged | one with it ||
Water boils in its depths | sobs out in waves |
Even a drop is a stranger | to this water ||
10
Beyond the temple courtyard | lives your world |
There let my sight | steady itself ||
May the light of the lamp | remain within the heart |
Let your and my | breath be one ||
May the hue of abir | infuse my very life |
My very life | peals in cymbals ||
Twenty eight epochs | she has spent alone |
May such a fate | never befall me ||
May the incense of solitude | burn deep within me
May the deepest of resonance | resound all through me ||
***