Behind the Seen
Iridescent blue stars dangle
On the insides of my eyelids
In daytime darkness,
The sunlight caresses the outside
My space, my universe
*
The language of thunder
In the pitter patter of rain
With slashes of lightening
My dialogue, my silence
*
Dewdrops on rose petals
Falling on thorny branches
Homing on pebbles and rocks
My emotions, my thoughts
*
Streaming down the windowpane
Is the rain water filled with
Bits of the rainbow
Chopped and capsuled
My grief, my pains
*
Big round red moon, hanging
In the blue-black bowl above
Defying the stillness of the oceans
With the ebb and flow of the tide
My love, my passion
*
Who can cross the border and return
Who can rise from the ashes of the pyre
Can the corpse walk out of the grave
My ghost, my self
Homing
Tibetan refugees hang their prayer flags
Red blue and yellow
In a string across roof tops
Fluttering with wafts of breeze
Coming from their homeland Tibet
In the anguish of exile they
Twist and turn, get knotted
And entwined in the rocky
Indian soils
And as in their homes
Reptiles and worms feed on each other
The same devils
The same angels
Buddha with the same benign smile
The same compassion
Offering sustenance
To colours dispersing
In the nothingness of vacant skies
Unsaid
The bleating black lamb
Stretched his hind legs
backwards
with the forelegs
at the farthest;
The green farms
In between
*
The heavy udders of
Himalayan goats
Black rain-filled clouds
Holding on
for redemption
*
The sun slips down
The horizon
To emerge at dawn
Buddha’s smile
Stays stable
Father’s Mantra
‘Breathe in, breathe out
Take deep long breaths’
was his mantra
The little boy playing in the park
The maid who cooked for him
The guest who came to see him
The mantra was passed on
Ceremoniously, without a grin,
At times, with a demonstration
stretched to absurdity
The mantra was his obsession
His eyes stalked the ants lining
Up the Neem tree
As he inhaled
the air through the leaves
His lungs bloating, expanding
As a reservoir of life
At seven, sleepwalking on the
crumbling and linked terraces
Of the ramshackle houses in Sialkot
Baba Nanak had come to him stealthily
In a vision or a dream?
Did he receive the mantra then
For the dear and not so dear ones
He was the chosen one
With premonitions of the apocalypse
Of the assaults on human lungs
‘Breathe in, breathe out
Take deep long breaths’
His mantra is everyone’s mantra today
He is no more
Breaths not taken
Remain in service of others now
Circular Paths
At dawn today
in the jungle
Kaurvas and Pandavas
stood ready for battle
War cries rose
from Keekar bushes
The winds whistled
beckoning the
golden chariot to pierce
dark clouds
and arrive with
reason and light
to suspend
the daily Mahabharat
*
Peepal and neem
Side and side
Let their leaves
Fall in the unison
Of yellow, green and
Brown
Dead hopes and wishes
In many hues
Fly away with the westward
Winds
Making space for
New leaves on their
Branches
These poems were part of The Poetry Issue 2023, curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of these poems should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
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