|Walking through the open skies|

An Open Sky


After all
the prayers
have been said,
and the tears shed
and the uncomfortable silences,
when we cannot respond,
endured
there remains
the soft, tender sorrow
that time does not heal.

And in that sorrow,
Fatah,
an opening
to the genuine sadness
of being alive ---
open to
the absolute necessity
of letting go
of everyone
and everything
we love.

we can close off
this deep sadness
or open
our tender hearts
so wide
that our heart
becomes as an
open sky ---

no borders,
nor boundaries,
just
an open sky.

---



In a couple of days more – the first chapter of the story shall be over.



A boy shall enter into intermission - much like movie show ones -- having tasted another un-tasted chapter of life. How was it like? Warm, nice, affectionate, slow, fast, alien, uncomfortable or what special adjective shall fit the bill?



Neither the boy knows, nor the writer of the story. Sometimes the boy wonders does anybody know anything at all. He looks at eyes of men and women, layered with various colors of the skin, looks at large cities and small, sits in long journeys in the buses or in trains smelling or perfumed. Nobody knows, they, much like him, seem like zombies walking the walks of life. Only the kids know and the simple village folks do. But then when was the last time he was with one of them, a small child or an unaffected simple working rustic fellow? He has forgotten.



What he remembers though is that the last year was another plunge he took. Was that by choice, or just that he was made to drift into here, this small city so many miles from what he knows to be home. He faced people who have migrated too, much like Siberian cranes as they do to escape the harsh winters. The people here from all around the world do that too – unlike winters they escape their pasts, the old roads from home, the hardships of a not so easy life back in what they call their home country. There is no home, noone’s own country, just where the heart lies, there shall the feet travel.



So where does the heart lie? Interesting question, wish he knew, or somebody knew, but maybe it lies just around the corner, ripped apart from the torso, throbbing still. He looks at it at the corner of the door, still pumping, not willing to die, despite failures in his life, myriad throwing around by fellow men or the feet becoming tired still. Today the heart lies and looks at its heartless body. Walking like a zombie. And then it looks at the open sky, cries with Rumi the poet:



No borders, no boundaries, just an open sky!



In a couple of days more, the first chapter of this story shall be over. He will be back into the skies again, kissing the clouds, travelling across borders and boundaries, crying up in the air, hidden from everybody, to see if there is any chunk of heart still left, from where his feet first started walking.