Blindness

 

Everyone is

beautiful, pretty, handsome,

gorgeous, attractive, exquisite,

magnificent, brilliant, bewitching, dazzling,

enticing, alluring, graceful,

divine, delightful, elegant,

captivating, fascinating, sublime,

charming, glamorous, aesthetic

in his/her own way.

 

The spots of dislike

that we see on them

aren’t actually

the dark markings on them,

These are the spots

on the retina of our own being,

preventing, obstructing full vision,

Making us partially blind

to the beauty around.

 

Clean the eyes of your existence,

Then all you see is just

beauty, love and grace.

The return of the native

 

Yanked off the hinges,

Torn away and blown to pieces,

Buried under the rubble,

Cut off from the rays of hope,

Dark clouds of locusts

devouring the crop of my effort.

 

Shame-stabbed,

Pacing the room like a caged animal,

Destiny’s chainsaws

cutting, clawing and gnawing

through the fibers of my existence.

 

Carrying autumnal colors in spring,

The serrated edges of memories

cutting the structure of my world,

The ghosts of sadness outside

always ready to barge into me.

 

That was how I set out

to kill the demons outside,

Went far and wide,

forgetting those that I carried

in the safe secrecy of my own self.

 

It was like a dust collector

carrying  a huge burlap sack,

Needlessly carting dust

oblivious to gems hidden in heart.

 

I went too far away

from my own self,

Got lost, cried, felt orphaned,

That’s when I felt Her touch,

Mother nature’s touch,

The furrows on my forehead

smoothened with Her touch,

It was then a slow crawl to recovery,

I felt the chirring, buzzing mystery

of emptiness around a rainbow.

 

There I stood in a wooded corner,

The time brewed a heady spirit

mixing tears and laughter,--

the potion to mend broken hearts,

The trees smiled among

the twisting vines of triumphs and travails,

Juicy, plentiful harmony pervading the air,

The birds with effervescent chorus of hope,

Each moment extending its realm of

harmony, ease, joy, lightness.

 

I felt in communion with vastness,

Vast stretches invaded with peace,

I was no longer a lonely lighthouse

struggling against the dark,

I felt like sun during the day

and like moon during the night.

 

It’s very easy to fall prey to sadness

and become a rock,

But it’s still easier to turn a happy soul

who chats with trees

and sings to flowers.

 

Far away in the solitude of a forest

I felt closer to humanity

than I ever felt even in a crowded bazaar

rubbing shoulders with human bodies,

There I was lonely, distanced,

Here I was alone

but so-so near to humanity in my heart.

 

Sharing the unsaid mixed in the silence,

I saw, felt, touched, tasted, heard holy scriptures

in forests, flowers, streams, blue skies, birds,

My religion became life itself,

God and godliness pervading humanly

and non-humanly on this vast canvas.

 

Reinvigorated, refurbished, renovated,

I then return to the busy streets,

The streets carrying the same old clatter,

But all has changed,

The shield of silence enveloped around

keeps me wired

to that far-flung harmony.

 

The return of the native

who is in tune with

the undertone of silence

even in a clattering bazaar.

 

Now I don’t close my eyes

to meditate,

I open them

to see this endless magic,

this infinite beauty.

The healer

 Once the storms are over, 

the motherly ray comes down 

to kiss and heal!!

A leadless tree

 

The winter has'n brutal and harsh,

And my struggle turned almost a farce,

Lost all my leaves,

With loss my soul grieves,

Still not all is lost,

For greenish life finds a host

in the wheat at my feet,

They pay a respectable greet,

My loss and my pain

doesn't go in vain,

Tumbled down as my leaf

with pain and grief,

Blossom thousands around,

Wheatlings like daughters doth surround,

Fell where my tear,

Many a smile this earth doth bear,

Doesn't go waste my pain,

Sows it the prospects of gain,

If not for me,

Definitely for thee!

The defeated man

 

There stands the defeated man,

Lines of worry etched on his face,

Blizzards pelting the petals

of the flower of his fate,

The sun setting in the eyes,

The light fading out

and the night settling

as dark circles under the eyes,

Almost ground into dust by destiny,

Tension unspooling in his gut,

The ravenous flames of nightmares

chasing him even during the sunlit day.

 

In the pit of dark,  

all he needed was her sympathy,

but never pity,

And this still surviving

streak of confidence and self-worth

seemed arrogance to her,

It opened a chasm between them,

which won’t be closed by

pity or angry words

or even attempts at fake lovemaking.

Romancing with freedom

 

Don’t make yourself small

by chasing the shadows

that were never yours,

If the shadows are all that

you can chase,

let these by your own

instead of blindly following others’

for petty gains and conveniences,

Because in chasing your own shadows,

you are still near the axis of your being

and open to redemption one fine day.

 

It’s advisable to carry the hefty weight

of your own dead dreams

instead of floating in the

webs of others’ dreams and desires,

Crawl on the ground

o thou dung beetle

instead of flying like a glowworm

in the darkness of others’ hearts.

The empty canvas

 

Your absence

is like a vast presence;

like the sky,

Pervading and high,--

the endless canvas of one

overarching attachment

in which minor attachments,

desires and little heartbreaks

drift like tiny clouds,

The floating signs

of all lesser attachments,

They spring up,

float and drift away,

As if these are your offspings,

You the queen attachment,

The vast sky;

the great emptiness

that remains despite all attempts

to fill it with multiple rainbows.