Sleep is coming hard this evening

Sleep is coming hard this evening..

--

After years of toil and defying nature

it's beauties and also it's travesties

sleep is coming hard this evening..

He said, and sitting from a thousand miles away

one felt at the tips of the finger and the ragged corners of the soul,

the excruciating sorrow  and devastation of loitering in the ruins..

The battles won but overall lost,

the bottles emptied, the injections filled

and refilled over time, across pharmacies

and nights and many evenings of heart wrenching pain..

and still despite all the science..

beyond all the pain..

She smiled, flicking an eye lid

setting off, away from all humanly efforts

to tie her in life's ordeal

of pain, suffering, sorrow and chicanery ..

She was right,

we were wrong, in her journey,

she wants all of us to join soon..

with sleep,

that was hitting papa hard this evening

when she was gone.

--

In memory of Ains..

05/1/2012.

| Distances |

Distances
--
I don’t understand distances
but i feel them, much like
i feel pain and sorrow
congestion or loneliness.

Pain is excruciating,
sorrow catches your eye,
congestion debilitates
loneliness much like distances
but perhaps not so alike -- are inexplicable

You look at the clock and think
what would she be doing now,
in some other part of the globe
You are awake in the middle of a day
She in her sleep , resting from a world of constant running

Let her sleep, you tell yourself,
and then you turn, to find ‘distances’ waving behind you
You realise how the biological clocks have inverted,
why the routines are now walking the opposite paths
And how much like when pain, sorrow and congestion waves,
you resign, you give up here too,
having failed to understand distances.
--

When will the time come?

Not now, not yet..
the time hasn't yet come
the writer tells him in solemnity;
didn't you once read somewhere
that you should 'let the world
change yourself, and you will
change the world'..

And only then,
you can pick the pen up,
be done with the room's lights,
light up the candle,
peer out the window,
and in the dead darkness of night,
start with what you want to
share with me..

Not now, not yet..
The time hasn't yet come
for you to board my ship;
but i know you are keen
and a student of my trade
so i will keep you in mind
and if there is a calling one day,
i will send you a red herring..

Tend to it,
nurture it carefully,
and then sit beside it
as it playfully jousts around
in the aquarium, to
jot down your misery
and stories of life..

And things you want to share
and those you don't,
even those, lace it around the
herring's heart,

I will be waiting,
for it to come back to me..
with the words of yours
and if i like them,
i will take them along with
me and my herring..

On the journey of a lifetime..

Till then,
not now, not yet, my friend..
the time hasn't yet come..
try one more time to be embraced
not with my life, but theirs
and i will wait to hear
more good or bad news from you..

Whichever way,
it doesn't matter,
it never mattered,
the sailing is always a emotionless
journey, and you will know by then
so too is writing..

Till then..
not now, not yet my friend..
the time hasn't yet come..

to the poet and his poetry

"He repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet."

--Garcia Marquez in 'Love in the time of Cholera'..

Door er jahajider kobita

Kemon kore jeno
dur er beugol
aar chole jaoa shomoy er
hathchaani dekhte pai..

Kore bhoy, lage oshohaay.
kintu bhetor theke jeno
ke bole othe..norbor e hole
cholbe ki kore..

Nouko r haal dhora r shomoy
tor to chole elo..
chokh er jol rakh
lomba ekta shaash ne..
aar neme por ei jibon
er jowar bhata r taan e..

Koto din aar er bimukh
hoe thakbi, domka haoaa r
moto er maadol daak
er theke dur e beshi din thaka je
boro mushkil..

Jedin tor daak ashbe,
dur er jahaji der beugol e
kinba chole jaoa r
hathchaani dekhte pabi dheu er shuduuur kon e

Ekta proshonno hashi dish..
ekta lomba kore nisshash nie chaarish..

tor chokh buje jaoa r pore..
Baki ta amra dekhe nebo..
---

An ode to a nameless bird

On these occasions
in loneliness and sadness
when i am all by myself
having traveled from god alone knows
where, and going to now, i don't know
where, i am left hurt, bruised and broken.

I know, the events
have not been all about me,
i have been blessed,
in many ways than i would have
not imagined and yet
somewhere within me
the fact that i deserved
better, if not as a matter of my skills
but just as a matter of a person

makes me wonder
if there is at all
on this earth,
be it snow or rain,
day or darkness,
any more value of being
good, being true, being honest
and caring for others..

values, maa and pa
taught me while growing up
but now it seems they have
all been reconciled into the
unknown dust, in that archive
of a lofty library..

Here's to life, love, and longing then..
and also to that unknown speckle of dust
take care, my good friend
i will see you again
in some other world,
in some other life,
as some other living being perhaps..

A bird maybe?
Nonchalant about boundaries
Ignorant about politics
Reverent only to innocence
Faithful only to your wings..

Under which i will hide
that dust, which in this life
maa and pa, old souls,
passed on to me..

now am old too..
And time has passed by in a mellow whisker.

from Ithaca, to Ithaca

--
I know,
as the clock ticks away
and the seconds pass on
out there in the dark gorges of Cayuga
Nothing will happen.

And even it will,
how might it really change
the lives of many displaced
centuries back by men of spears
with no concern for tears

And yet, i yearn,
crossing through those hills
into an old tower, sitting atop
passionately hoping,
that perhaps..

Cayuga is listening
and the gorges will open up
and take me on
as i continue my journey
from Ithaca to Ithaca..
beyond your silent tears.
--

to cornell, ithaca on a sunny wintry morning...

aaj jemon kore
emni kore chao go

aaj haoa jemon patay patay
mormoriya, bon ke kandaay

temni amaar, buk er, majhe
kandiya..kaandaao go...

-kobiguru robindronath thakur.