droplet
A single droplet of approaching
rain touches my skin
reaches the very centre, the fields of silence.
Soon in the heart of thirsty being
teeny drops turn into oceans,
in them the symphony of eternity.
Leisure
On Saturdays and Sundays
we wake up late, spend leisurely
time at breakfast, think of lunch,
plan meticulously for dinner
at some fancy new or familiar
joint, never for a moment wondering
if on other days of the week
the Mondays, Tuesdays and so on
right through the glossy soft-porn
calendar on whose pages
luscious actresses smile,
tempting the passage
of weeks, months and years,
anything genuine or worthwhile
is realized apart from the mere
act of living. Reflection, to be sure,
is a precious rare thing,
placed carefully
on the proverbial back burner
while life passes by imperceptibly
like the scent of nothingness.
To Night
i pause at the ends of time
gaze in wonder into your shadowy
endlessness, your arms,
stretching across velvety
expanses, jealously
embrace all to the fringes
of veiled existence.
Inscrutable, unpersuadable,
unwilling to unfurl the secrets,
the countless stars your
tantalizing eyes,
you keep mysteries deeper
than aeons in my own interior
deeper than being itself.
you and i are one, night
without you i cease to be.
Hangzhou image
Sipping green tea, misty
at a shady Hangzhou cove
on the moon bridge
across a still reticent
stream of the lake a slender
figure glides by, silent
umbrella sheltering, her
reversed double, striking
yellow in a watery mirror.
Is it the flimsy
shade of a mysterious
maiden, I wonder, blushing
angel, or golden deity?
Harmony
In the disparate world of noises, I seek
the incalculable silence of the eternal,
in the centre of engulfing darkness
the desperate glimmer of dawning light.
In the tragic turmoil of every
screaming, struggling soul I hear
unarticulated voices of pain and desire
grasping for intractable meaning.
Wherever I search in all directions
I realize not the harmonies of lost being.
To the core of my own miniscule self
In desperation I turn; its quiet rhythm
through each and every molecule sings
for me the chronicle of existence.
Bird Soul
When Providence decided to fashion the soul
it envisioned a bird as life itself.
With the radiance of the rainbow
its beauty, its flights of fancy
what better symbol,
what lightness more seemly
than the beaming hues of the bird?
What song more soothing
than the voice eternal
in the still-dark awakening,
dawn’s spark in being’s garden?
Yet now with the browning of green
splendour through effluence,
the very existence
of the garden in jeopardy, what future
for the still-quivering spirit?