Evening Shades

 Evening shades...

a musical silence...

a pleasant sadness...

a shifting stability...

a solitudional companionship...

a sweet loneliness...

a whisper...

a dewy smile...

a place where light and dark have a date.

The old

 The Old 

doesn't want to leave its hold

against the new all fresh and bold.

The death of a butterfly

 

A grounded butterfly

on the mossy brick floor,--

A flickering, flapping life

completing its last worldly chore,

A sad sight,

so many others flutter with delight,

suckling flowery smiles and nectar sweet,

Aha, life on full feisty treat,

And the sad, sick dying butterfly

with its wings shut tight,

jutted, sticking like one wing,

The air gone with the space between them,

A closing, a conclusion,

a finish to the chapter,

a final drop of anchor,

Just life enough to hold them tight and straight,

and a little movement of legs

to convince the gathering ants

that it’s something alive,

imploring them to respect

the death bed’s sad sanctity.

 

A silent, slow parting from the world

in a rain-soaked mossy corner

in this big world full of

big-time meetings, unions and laughter,

She is deathbed, grave, cremation

right there in the centre of

throbbing life, raucous laughter and living.

 

Life still holding

like the vertical sail of a lost boat,

The ants sensing the death

which is their food,

But it has enough kick in its legs

to shake them off and move

for a little jog of life,

another tiny sip of survival.

 

The day progresses,

Time crawls slowly,

There is now a tilt in its

vertical lime-green sails,

With a slanted sail it moves,--

Brave butterfly,

If you can’t fly,

you should crawl,

Moving with shut-down slanted wings

is also the hallmark of life,

It shows that once you flew high,

The yard is now

an unknown grounded reality,

One more tiny step,

One more little sip of life.

 

It needs a flowery coffin, I think,

I hold the shut down wings

to take it to a cozy flowery corner

where it can die in peace,

But there is enough force in its wings

to give a tangible pull

to the fingers of a pitying poet,

It flutters to the core of its life reserves,

It denies the captivity even

in its last moments,

As I try to put it among the petals

of a lovely flower in a safe corner,

It denies the possibility of make-believe comfort,

It’s brave; it loves its freedom,

It’s even wiser than me,

Shakes to deny my denial of death,

It flaps vigorously, as if shouting,

‘Let me be open and honest with my death

on the same old open, raw stage of life!’

It’s no longer interested in flowers,

It has dropped its cravings for petals and nectar,

That was then, and now is now,

With marvelous detachment

it uses her last ounce of strength,

swings and swirls and flops out of

the rosy bed I prepared,

‘Flowers are for life;

ground is for death!’ it seems to shout,

She makes this bold statement

with the last air in her wings,

almost gets airborne again

but lands on ground after

a few feet of painful, struggling flight,

It lands on the eternal bed of eternal sleep,--

mother earth,

It looks at me with a rebuke,

‘What do flowers matter now?

They were for the time when there

was air and desire in the wings!’

And there she stands on the ground again,

strong, defiant, her sails vertical again,

The antennae on alert

like a lacerated soldier still holding his sword

to parry off the last strokes of enemy swords,

Her legs dancing to accidental

bumps of the rushing ants,

Tightly holding the fort of life,

Seems to tell me,

‘Give as much as you can,

as long as it’s possible!’

 

She faces the end with dignity,

with calm deliberation,

with full alertness,

using all that is still left to her

to defend her identity of a butterfly,

And she does that with honor,

If not with flying colors

but with brave, straight sail

for almost four hours,

Then the vertical sail tipped over,

Her little ounce of consciousness

sought a way out,

The closed wings opened

Like the fists opening to open palms

of a human dying and turning to a corpse,

She welcomed the skies

with open wings

and flew to subtler dimensions.

 

She is now a toy for the wind to play with

and food for the ants to enjoy,

Her colorful corpse flutters

and is dragged playfully by the wind,

The ants pursue the lemon-green food,

Its wings chipped like a a cake getting cut,

Happy ants carry home the mementos of victory.

 

The butterfly is now air, sun, wind, sky

and water, fire, earth in the ants,

The little show of death on the ground,

The show of life in full abloom

among crimson clusters of peregrina flowers,

The corpse disintegrates on the ground,

While her sisters dance on the petals,

They suck nectar from flowers’ lips,

They flutter and play among leaves,

Dozens of them giving the best

a butterfly can give

in beauty, smiles, nectar and pollination,

Then silently one of them

comes aground like this one,

Floats like a dry, dead leaf

and gently touches the ground for eternal rest,

The show of many lives and smiles

and some deaths and tears,

Among happy flowers, waving leaves, floating clouds,

All under the eternal muse of that

who lives and dies side by side.

A real friend

 

The situation is ‘as it is’,

Thy knee under painful seize,

Humans may not be much support,

but look at the stick taut with its supportive deport,

Listen to her lovely tapping song,

It is your extension for the time being,

A real friend

to see you through

to better days on a smother path,

when the sun will smile with brighter rays,

Happy, healthy all aglow

and walk of your own with poise and steps slow,

Then one fine day

egged on by a sunny ray

it will find you strong again,

Sing it will then a lovely farewell song

with its last tappings on your floor,

You’ll then take up routine chore,

But don’t forget your friend in need,

When there wasn’t anyone to pay you heed,

Don’t throw it away,

Keep your friend in a corner

to remind you that

we are humans

and we need support,

Basically to give

and receive with grace as well.

The pregnant woman

 

I can see that glow,

that joyous feminine flow,

I can feel that sense of fulfillment in you,

It’s a smile not to win

but of sweetly losing to

the force of creation

of which you are the carrier womb,

Serenity and acceptance seeping in you

as your stomach grows,

An acceptance of someone within you

to give it life

and nurture it with your own blood;

with love, smile and care,

Your eyes carry a deep contentment

despite all the pains and discomfort

you have to accept and welcome

to give a chance to a little life

to dance on the stage of creation,

You walk slowly and carefully;

the best steps you ever took;

each step measured and treasured,

You eat for her,

You feel for her,

You even avoid a tear for her sake,

You dream for her,

Your every cell is busy in its job for her,

Your slender, fabulous curves

melt under the heat of motherhood,

You joyfully abandon the prized and well-worked

standard statistics of your curvy figure,

The bigger is happier for her,

Slowly you change shape

and become a totally new person,--

for her, just for her,

You fly in your soul so that

she would be walking on her tiny feet,

You happily gain kilos

to give her a few extra grams,

You inhale happiness

so that she can feel its taste in you,

You walk through the tough field

of making a new life

with a selfless willingness,

This is the fulfillment in you

that you had been seeking for so long

while you stamped your caliber and authority

on the worldly stage,

You were exercising to take the

curve of your belly

to an inward feminine curvature

so that some day

you will let it loose

like a bow drawn tautly inwards

to unleash it with sweet, creative fury,--

the arrow of maternity,

The stomach drawn back with so much care

bursting forth with feminine force of creation,

There you launch your identity

to be a mother;

from a woman to be a mother,

A Goddess you look with your big belly,

Even lusty eyes have respect for you now

because you are carrying

a sacred baton of life now.

  

The destroyer of death

 

The thought, sight or proof of death

is disconcerting, mostly fearful,

But hold a dead butterfly in your hand

and death loses its meaning,

It looks so fragile, lovely, beautiful, colorful;

so near to life and all that it stands for

that the word ‘death’ loses meaning.

It feels a representative of eternal life,

immortally frozen in a moment,

Life’s colors stamped with authority,

The form, the shape

dispelling the formless shades of death,

A colorful stamp of life

on the face of death.

The fearsome word loses its meaning

in association with a butterfly—

dead or alive,

The gist of smiles, fragrance, flying, nectar,

fluttering and playfulness,--

a life crystallized to a feathery diamond;

something bigger than even life,

Death looks so-so common in its face.

The beggar patient

 

In front of a hospital,

on the outskirts of a town,

on the starting point of a road divider,

facing a crossing,

there she sits,--

a fragile, old, sickly woman,

Hunched and crouching,

A blanked and soiled bundle by her side,

There are dozens of patients in the hospital,

recovering, cared for,

They have money,

They have family and friends,

She but is all to herself

and some kind soul’s mercy

who may stop, pause and give something,

Her head is hung low,

The eyes forever grounded,

She doesn’t look at you;

doesn't say a begging word;

doesn’t plead;

nor thanks you if you give something,

She is too poor and sick to give anything,

She hasn’t even that much life

to even say thank you or a little sad smile,

She is present

but life seems to be absent,

You can give some fruit or coins,

She is an open little box of misery

lying there to give a chance

to feel kind and caring,

A wooden box almost,--

Lifeless!

And a box doesn’t speak,

Maybe some kind doctor or caring nurse

give her some pills sometimes

as their share in the domain of charity,

The beggar patient, they must be thinking,

Possibly she draws some security

by being so near to a hospital,

A mere look at the swanky, glass fronted hospital

must be assuring her that she’s at a hospital.

I have seen her a few times,

Sprouted like a mushroom on a dung heap

in the season of monsoon,

I also know she’ll be gone suddenly some day,

But I’ll remember the heavy presence

of her light body in her absence.