Thoughts In A Graveyard

this evening
as I walk past the graveyard
the thought comes to me
that it is not entirely impossible
one of those crumbling graves
was mine
that name carved there
almost obliterated
was as much mine
as the name I go by today
under that grey slab of stone
time's hands have worked
inexorably on my flesh and bone
grinding them into the earth
that I am alive
in the grass growing wild there
and I move
with the leaves on those trees

~ Rwits

Truth

I hunger for truth today

I seek to feed on truth

till every fibre of my being

glows incandescent in its light

My lips will say what my heart says

and my flesh will do what it wills

and every fear that stops me 

I'll stare it in the eye

for I know its daunting masquerade

 is nothing but a lie

Pain

I brought pain with me when I came to earth. A lack, an absence, an incompleteness in my human life. I chose it with care before I came.
And then as it happens, I forgot all about who i really was and why I was here. But the pain did not forget me.
It lived with me, ran with me. Its fetid breath and hungry mouth gave me no peace. For that which I lacked, shadowed all that I had.
Till one day, tired of its persistent, foul presence, its swallowing of all that made me happy, I turned and followed it to its lair.
And saw it disappear. The lair metamorphosed into a treasure trove.
I saw the falsity of pain. I saw that when one investigates and follows its trail to the source, it leads one to truth. I saw that the pain had kept me awake and had rescued me from the sweet venomous slumber of false pleasures.
Its fearsome face hid the precious key to joy, to freedom. And that is why I could never have come to earth without my chosen pain.

home

a million times I walked the earth
a million times I perished
a million times my blood, breath and bone
returned to the world around me
I flow in rivers
I blow in winds
I grow in grass beneath me
from this I rise
to this I fall
my homestead in eternity

Mystery

a thousand births
a thousand deaths
a thousand names
a thousand masks
a thousand stories
that never ended
flow on in this 
mystery of me

Storms

I have known her for more than thirty years now. Her life and mine have some similarities and some differences. We belong to the same community, are roughly the same age. Both our fathers started off as clerks and retired as government officials. Both of us did our postgraduation. I am from a small town, a really small one, while she had grown up in a big metro and had studied in one of the better known colleges there.

We were married about the same time, a year apart. And then the differences really began.  Her life was smooth, real smooth. She lived with her husband. No in law hassles. Life was a dream. She had a wonderful, kind, good looking man as her husband. He had a fine job, earned a high salary.  Everything in her life happened with clock work precision and smoothness. Birth of her two sons, their growing up, education, jobs, marriage, grandchild.The sons studied and  found jobs within the same city and are high earners now.  The daughter in law has a good job. Her husband found another well paying job, immediately after retirement. They all live together in a swanky home with  many cars and lots of money in the bank. There never have been any major upheavals in their lives. No transfers, no children leaving home, none of the changes one usually deals with, in life.

In simple words, a perfect life . A life which is the dream of many. She should be blissfully happy by all counts. She is not. 

 The trouble began when the son got himself a girlfriend and talks for marriage began. She was going through menopause then. She became obsessed with ill health, would be panic stricken, calling her husband and sons home from work, mostly for false alarms.Things went from bad to worse  as she steadily lost her health. All advice to go out, meet people, get involved in some activity fell on deaf ears. She is sick and will have none of that. Three years down the line, it has been a downward spiral, frightening to watch. Her ill health has become a means for her to seek attention. At the age of fifty five, she looks and behaves like a woman well into old age.

 I wondered why. The son's marriage was the first major change she had faced in her life. A new person in the home and the son's life.She did not have the requisite strength or resilience to absorb that change and the unraveling began. And then spectres of aging, disease and death bared their teeth, as they usually do around this time.

My life, on the other hand, has been one of adapting and adjustment. Marrying into a joint family, very different from my own, transfers, going abroad,  job trouble, debilitating illness, living through riots, wars, children leaving home for studying and jobs. All the usual stuff and more. 

And I found that very early on in life,  in my attempt to adjust, to survive the storms which buffeted me and my family, I had been forced to seek  meaning in life. And that had helped me to grow roots, really long, strong ones. In my need, I searched for this meaning in books, articles, songs, people, situations around me. Anywhere and everywhere. Searching for meaning became a way of life. And finally, I searched for meaning  within myself. And the journey became really exciting and  wondrous  from that point, onwards

And now I am thankful, very thankful, that the storms came when they did. I am thankful for each deprivation, disappointment, difficulty for coming when it did.Storms hold no fear for me. They never will. For I know, that the path to unshakeable peace within, leads through pain, through change, through storms.I open my arms to storms. They transport me to myself.

sick bed

on the sick bed 
time is an ailing companion
hours and minutes
drag their feet
in grudging sluggishness

********************

on the sick bed, I long
for my mother's cool touch
drawing out fevered pain
mothers know magic 
who can doubt that ?

**********************

on the sick bed she lay
and the world around her
after fussing for a bit
went about its day
the way it always did 

finding her alone
in the darkened, hushed room
her ailing body pulled her into
that long awaited conversation
her aching limbs, fevered pores
her breath, blood and bone
whispered their stories to her
while the clock ticked in pain

she healed 
and the world called her back
to methodical madness
glad she was but then 
for sometime, she had the sense
of having come to  hair's breadth closeness
of some truth and that now
it has slipped away

Mother's Day

I held infinity in my womb
as it forged a mortal shape
I held omnipotence in my arms
as it played a helpless babe
I was the child
I am the mother
I will be child again
I don the masks
one after the other
eternal masquerade

Heartbreak

I walk on heartbreak. Broken glass.
My feet torn and bloodied.
Someone within me, smiles.

Players Of Cards

hide hide hide

the rules scream at us

you must not see my hand

for then I stand no chance

we sit across each other

faces of stone

hearts locked by fear

we, the players of cards

Death

Death follows me.

Shrouded, quiet.
She dogs my footsteps.

Sometimes, whispering

dire threats in my ear
that my breath belongs to her.

She can snatch it away
whenever she wills.

When I pay no heed

she sobs and whines

begs and begs

for me to transform
her darkness to light.

For she knows

that I and only I 

can give her that gift
she craves for.

I

walking together

when I walked with you, in your darkness, girl

some of the darkness was mine

when you stumbled and wept in anguish

some of your tears were mine

you were lost and when I reached for your hand

my despair found some solace

when the red sun rose in your bosom

some  light shone on my face

when you found your way home, girl

I came out of the maze