इस मोड़पे मैं क्या करूँ?
छोड़ दूँ तुम्हें या बाँध लूँ?
इस तन में तन्हा उधार है
आखिर जीवन से कैसे जुदा रहूँ?

just one tear

just one tear

finds its way

crawling

to the call of a heart

steeped in love

exploding

into the vagaries

of this stillness

devouring

every thought 

of you.

the grief of being human

there is a grief
beyond
this utter wilderness
of loss

it is the grief
that I could not see you

I could not feel
beyond this veil
shrouding the truth

the truth of love
and of being human,
with you.

blessed death

if I could die
I would
in your arms,
in that one embrace
of breath,
of the cosmos
swirling
within us,
in our cells,
in our bones,
in our flesh;

if I could live
through that moment,
I would hold you forever
in my eyes,
in my heart,
in my breath,
a nameless god
who made me come alive
to this world,
to this love,
and this blessed death,

with no you,
no me,
just us
in one timeless breath.

without a sound

you showed me how to live
when you walked away
in the quiet of a breath
unheeded,
with eyes rooting
for the intractable darkness ahead,
not turning back even once
to see what was left behind,
no tassels left
to dance with the wind,
only one cord
that binds you
to your undying song -
the one you are here for,
the same song
that leaves sing
in the thick of a forest,
even as they die,
without a sound,
without a fuss,
without one memory
of eons witnessed
over lifetimes
of green to brown.
you showed me how to live
without a sound.

Birds

this morning
my eyes
were plucked out
from the cold screen
and into the warm blues
that came alive
with the wings of birds
of the season,

some rose together
in a crowd,
an amoeba changing shape
with the winds of desire,
some flew against the grain,
joyfully exploring
new skies and ground,
away from their flock,
while some others
chose to soar alone,
as if to embrace
the whole world
with their out-stretched wings,

and I thought to myself,
how the waters inside me
come alive
with different birds
in different seasons.

Raining Love

there was a time
when I was
too scared
of rain,
every drop
piercing me
like a single shard
of sharp glass,
tearing open
many hardened skins;

water became blood
flowing from
a stinging heart,
that knew not
how to dance
in the rain,

today,
when it rains,
my skins melt
like happy clay,
puddles form
and disappear,
trickles
become rivers,
then roaring rapids,
happy feet
do a little dance
to the pitter-patter,
a heart that's young
writes little love notes
on paper boats,
blotted by drops
that gave them a life,
laughter and tears
wash away
the sleepy silence,
and a heart
quietly remembers
how to love.

Spirals, not Circles

I dream of a world
beyond stifling circles,
and heads stuck in
outdated tracks,
energies held close
in black and white
time and space.

I dream of a world
where we can
sit and speak,
listen and move,
in spirals;
where eyes and hearts
can dance at will,
through spaces
in their togetherness,
through order
in the randomness,

shifting footprints
that challenge
indelible grooves,
moving off
into the distance,
into an adventure
of becoming
and dissolving,

into untamed dreams -
the curls of incense,
the daunting vortex,
the sleeping helix
in our countless cells
waking up to an orgasm
that never ends,
and this journey
of spiraling
into the infinitesimal
through infinite
unknown steps.

The Ground of our Dreams

and the tree
said to the leaf -
"I let you go,
for you belong
not to me,
but to the wind
who makes you dance,
to the sun
who laughs with you,
to the moon
who tickles you
with her magic wand,
to the rain
who softens your fall,
to the earth
who gathers you
anytime, into her
wide open arms,
and so go,
without a turn
of your sprightly face,
as I watch you
weave your blessed path
across worlds,
into the ground
of our dreams -
those we hold
close to our hearts;
for our dreams
are not
castles built in clouds,
they are the seeds
planted
in the core of our being,
they are the roots
that give us wings
to rise and fall
all over again."

Invisible

I love the time of day
when I'm alone,
when time overflows
from the silence
of immovable walls,
into everything
that's not me
and me,

when I can become
invisible
and wander aimlessly
to the doorway
between two shades of blue,

when I can perch atop
a lingering cloud
and look at the world
and scream out loud,

when I can rest
for as long as I like
upon the wings
of a bird
moving effortlessly
between worlds it doesn't own,

when I can float upon
and jump from ripple to ripple
in any direction
and still flow on,

when I can come back
and sit upon the banks
in the motionless sand
and snuggle close
to the dancing sheaves of grass,

until I want to move
as me
into a formless world
that gives me form.

Hungry for Life!

you know that feeling
when you wake up
some mornings,
with an empty mind
looking into
an empty sky
impossible to be contained
by a line of blue?
yes, that's how
I want to wake up
to every moment,
hungry
for life!

A Prayer for You

you asked me
to pray for you

and so I looked
into myself
to notice
a soft, steady trickle
of clear water
like a mountain spring

growing,
changing,
listening
all the while
to the trees,
the sky,
the birdsong,
the pebbles,
the crickets,
and the clarion call
of a faraway ocean

and then flowing out,
awakened
to the silence
resting deep
within
words,
this world,
this womb,
the arrival
of a new you
and me
I cannot see,
and a voice
that can finally speak.
a prayer for you.

Into and Beyond the Light

today
i want to light
one little lamp
in the quiet
of my temple.

not for visitors
to come in
and take a peek
and marvel
at the darkness
and light,
to take them
to that same void
where I've been sucked in
many a time,

today
i want to light
one little lamp
just for myself,
not to feel safe,
or trump evil eyes,
or hope to save the world
with the light,

today
i want to light
one little lamp
just for myself.

i want to feel
the heat rise and engulf
my parched skin,
i want to feel
every wrinkle and scar
light up and burn,
i want to feel
the heat get to me
in the closeness,
i want to feel
the urge to get up
and walk away,
to do something,
anything,

and then
in that threshold
of one inflamed silence,
i want to feel the flame
flicker and grow
and die
in the stillness
of my temple

and feel the desire
to light it
and not light it
again.

today,
i want to light
one little lamp,
just for myself,
in the quiet
of my temple.

Lotus

I feel you
in the depths
of my womb,
a stirring of new life,
soft contours of mud
dissolving into water,
bubbles rising up
and popping,
before they reach
the skin
of upturned green palms
holding the immensity
of the sky
in their bosom,
ripples leaving
without returning home,
as fire sits with fire,
burning away the dross,
and somewhere
in those murky silent depths,
a lotus blooms quietly,
turned on by her solitude,
parting her folds
with the gentlest touch
of the first morning sun.

Fish Out of Water

between
sky
and
water
is a place
I like to be

fringes
are spaces
between
impending struggle
and tarried freedom,

a tight-rope dance,
where a fish
learns to be
not a fish
out of water,
but a bird with gills
who can surf and dive
into sky and sea.

What do I want?

'what do I want?'
I ask myself,
eyes perched
upon a horizon
which somehow retains
a caged sameness
everyday

surfaces and edges
that clamor tirelessly
to camouflage the aliveness
that draws me in,
an invitation
to stand
on the sacred stage,
where life meets life
naked
all the time,

where what I feel
sets aflame
my insides,
stoking something
unknowable
unspeakable
to foreign eyes,
and a white hot desire
to live
and die to
the adventure
that is,
this one life.

A Living Frontier

at the cusp
of something
I can feel
in my bones,
is it a living frontier
of a becoming
and a dying?
or a simple feeling
of what is, and
what could be?

I wake up quivering,
and let the vastness
and depths
of the firmament
pierce my eyes,
its feelers sinking
into my tender pores,
groping with tentacles
into the void
within, and
touching everything
with a gentle presence,

ah! how it makes me
come alive
to everything
within and without -
one feeding
and digesting
the other,
all the time,
exchanging
secret recipes

what it takes
to make
a stone,
a snowflake,
a seashell,
a leaf,
a bird,
a critter,
a flower,
the darkness,
a smile,
a loss,

and,
a human teardrop
poised
on the edge
of a flood
just waiting to happen.

Without Reason

a sunset
is a sunset.
why make it
into a moonrise
that's on its way?
or a sunrise
that's passed on
into a finite day?

a sunset
is a sunset.

see me
for who I am.
feel me.
now.
not for who you thought I was.
not for who you want me to be.
love me.
through all seasons.
without comparison.
without reason.

Stuck.

frozen.
inside my soles.
I can't take
a single step,
even as my eyes
roam the horizon.
and the earth shakes
violently
beneath my feet.

muscles twitch
to feel an inch
of stillness,
in a world
with no margins,
no lines to follow,
no imaginings
to form patterns
with even wispy
beginnings
and ends.
only spirals.
endless.
folding into themselves.

cocooned
by Life
who knows
how to work
on me,
tired eyes
find their way home,
muscles twitch
and come alive
in the craziness,
dancing in skins
centuries old,
loosening their grip
on faithless bones,

and a tiny seed
opens itself out to the world
from its imposed tightness,
sinking invisible roots
into the sticky emptiness
and beyond,
waiting,
noticing,
becoming,
the effortless flow
of life within Life.

At the Altar of Death

put down
all your beliefs
your stories
your identities
your dreams
your whole self
first
at the altar of Death

leave them there
for a while,
as you bow down
and open yourself
to the fragrant breath,
feeling it flow
into and out of
your every cell

and then,
receive it all -
everything you put down,
as an offering
from the God of Death,
wearing them
with reverence
and grace

remember
their fragrance,
their softness,
their lightness,
as they lay strewn
like colourful flowers
with death on their wish-list,
ready to offer themselves
up again, any time.

and then you will know how to live.