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Heartland of a Silent Landscape
Spare me some time for a morning walk
In an open space, or a sprawling field.
My heart wants to crack the whip
And replenish with fuel its sinking tank.
An awakened heart, an awakened mind
In the face of the universe vast
Wait serenely for the song of blackbirds
On standby for the call of the dawn.
The moon stares bewitchingly
At the colors of the early morning sky
As it waits for its sentry’s call.
A group of fanning birds whirling past
Wink at flowers in this seductive light.
Bountiful calls of light and shade
And the breeze’s healing touch
Nudge in me my inner silence
To wake up from its soulful sleep,
And look for a platform for it to perform
To make its peaceful whispers felt,
Casting a shadow over the mind’s turmoil.
Uncoiled will be a life’s bounty
To which the mind has kept itself blind,
Like the beauty of a lady awakened
With her drowsy innocent eyes.
At her feet the moment will capitulate
In the heartland of that silent landscape.
Twilight
In the twilight of my life
I sit beside a charcoal fire
Remembering our first meeting
And countless others after —
Each more colorful and apt
At breeding our golden dreams.
We drank glasses of vows:
We would never leave each other.
Time fades the indelible colors
And our vows with them.
But what time could not fade
Was the sweetness of your lips,
And the spellbinding poetry
Of your slender hands.
Even today my heart beams
At the thought of their touch.
Time has galloped away
And has lost in the mist afar
Our love in its solitude broken,
Though the bouquet of vows
We nurtured and kept in a vase
Has kept open the doors
Of my dreams to the magic
Of holding you in my embrace.
The fragrance of those days
Has kept all these years bright.
It is time, now, for me
To free you from my hold
By placing our tender vows
In the burning fire of charcoal.
The vows curl in the smoke
As it dissolves the twilight into night.
Youthful Love
Oppressed was I, oppressed was she.
We had entered the spring of our youth.
Feelings of pain took stony wings
The moment we had to leave the other
When the day ended at school.
Long seemed the night of separation.
These were the first buds of love
That had sprouted in our lives.
Novice to these enveloping desires
We spent hours holding hands
And walking on the lakeside,
Not knowing how tomorrow would be.
Then the school days were gone.
We exchanged vows in tears.
We went to different universities.
Soon our lives entered the fast lanes.
A chapter of innocence in love
Had been imprinted in our hearts.
Drowned in these lonely pages
Are the sighs of those yearnings,
The recollection of those laughs,
And the pains of being apart.
I wait for the wind to flutter open
These pages to relive those hugs.
Living my Last Dream
Shaping up in my impassive heart
Is the desire to versify my last dreams
As dwindling fast in me is the energy
And strength resounding of passion.
Eroding away are the blue glaciers
In search of a poetic ode to nature
That had sustained me until now.
Left with me in my gloomy strains
Are rusty wings and deflated wheels
To equip the plane of my dreams,
Ready to fly, but barely standing
And foretold of a rough take-off.
I felt in tune with the crumbling frame
Of the aircraft of my last dream.
Struck by nostalgia but living a risk,
The plane’s fortune hung by a thread
As it reached its cruising height.
Witness to the slumbering beauty
Of valleys and forests, all lit in golden light,
I prayed for bliss to pervade this land
As I soared to the land of my dreams.
Life’s Perceptions
Healing rays of the rising sun
Filter through a punch of greenish pink,
And a waft of fragrance fills my spirit
As I walk past bougainvillea in bloom.
Not reputed for prowess unbound
In aroma, neither bougainvillea
Nor the rays of the sun staked
A claim for vanity unowned.
Yet the rays filtering through
Carried a celestial fragrance.
Was this scent an expression
Of the serene state of my mind?
Or was the glow a sensation sublime
Sieving through the pink blooms?
Life is a crossroad of perceptions
Chained to our state of mind.
I add a redeeming ritual to my life
To go to the pond at the village end
In the early morning dawn
For cleansing my state of mind.
If a needle fell in a music-lit hall,
A state cleansed would perceive the fall
As if enthralled by a silent chant,
Though awake would be the decibels.
Hanging around Life’s neck
Is a musical bell of perceptions,
Whose windscreen, rinsed
Of all its weeds of prejudices,
Remains awake in its dormancy,
Sensitive each moment to the invisible
Even driving along, a cratered track
Unmarked and with crossings aplenty.
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