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Between a screaming dense forest

Of yesterdays and tomorrows

Lies an ocean

‘An ocean within a forest?’,

you ask.

Yes, an ocean, ever so still.

To dive, you need no gear

Nor do you need to know how to swim

You’ll see it takes more than swimming

To gleefully drown

in utter silence.

Way to this still ocean

is facile, they say

Yet, many halt to take a nap

But this time around, I am sleepless.

This time around, the body is my map.

And breath, my navigation.

Blossom

A flower, we pray to be,

for the birds and bees.

Mauve or even burgundy

amongst stunning emerald leaves.

Dawn summons the amber sun to peek,

at myriad helpless little buds like me.

In an orchard of apples and bloody berries,

turn us into blooms, we beseech.

Paint

I paint with paint born out of stars

and glitters born out of stardust.

Tenderness for colors conceive paintings,

and devoutness, colors.

A zillion combination of tones,

desert me in an enchanted daze.

A thousand tactics to paint,

but blotches and blots, I embrace.

In dispassion for the ultimate,

I see them turn into gleaming clusters.

The gleam renders me to embrace-

abandonment in abundance!

I paint not what you see.             

I know not what you or I see either.

My abandoned paintbrushes merely wander,

to give birth to my whimsical universe.

Arrival

Interrupted breaths, erratic devotion

What has become of me?

A promise I embraced, to hold you in every breath

now stands alone, aloofly.

 

Guru, why now do I feel

the waft of air that you are, so distantly?

I wonder if I gave you away

to the absurd world so easily?

 

I listened wastefully what they said,

forgetting what you are to me.

Please come back, in tears I plead

With my very self, I’ll bathe your feet.

 

Ah! Who else be accused of your exit,

but the puerile me?

How did I expect your divine feet in my home,

when my home itself is awfully filthy?

Preparation

Pages of conceit, she burns,

before she steps in.

She deserts it all

to make room for Him.

Slivers of vanity,

she leaves behind-

everything that shan’t allow

to seep Him in.

All she carries with her

is unbending readiness.

And devotion,

her companion, constant.

And when she steps out,

she indeed, never would.

But what you knew of her,

shall be memory so distant.

Himalayas

Have I not seen mountains before?

Have I not been up hills before?

The cool beach waters entice.

The warm desert sands attract.

Have I not already seen it all before?

Yet, these Himalayas up North!

Great giants, snow topped!

Lending the horizon, a silhouette.

Ah, what do I say about these Himalayas up North?

Without a sound, it writes into your breath and eyes

a comfortable hangover within.

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn!

Once these mountains settle

in your breath and

photographed behind your eyes,

I warn-

you’d breathe and see nothing with-out.

Shambho

An ache breathes

in my dreams and paintings

to lay and leave my limbs on

these mountains mighty.

A visit ensued so.

And the dream, in part, conceived

without warning.

But warning I did need not.

My limbs didn’t tire.

Only my breath did.

Then again, unescapable.

The warmth of this ache,

thawed the chilly air around.

And the snow didn’t distract

my stride to the crown.

Then around the bend of the trail,

I saw.

Swathed in white snow,

He stood as striking as His abode.

A stubborn resolve

to reach Him ascended.

The fuel to my weary limbs and lungs,

just one burning word on my lips;

a ploy titled ‘Shambho’!