MOMENTS - 2

 Moments - 2

There are moments,

When no words spill,

There is only silence,

That alone speaks,

To find that ardour,

The heart alone seeks.

A  deafened world listens,

As the bow moves,

Back and forth,

On the strings of life,

The player fallen prey,

To an everlasting strain.

On the stage the pantomime,

Struggles to keep alive,

His rhythm and rhyme;

As a muted world gazes,

At his desperate acts,

To make his silence speak.

The colours on the canvas,

Spread rich and bright,

But the sightless world seeks,

In the dead of night,

All that passion that had flown,

Now nowhere in sight.

The muse in the midst,

Of his musings sat,

His eyes closed,

In his silent world,

As the listless world outside,

Wanders to and fro.

As the warrior wields his sword,

The poet plays with his words,

Mowing down the barriers,

Of the body and the mind,

While the world finds it self bound,

To the tethers on the ground.

MOMENTS

Moments

It is when the light and darkness meet,

When the day and night merge,

It is when twilight reigns

In that moment you submerge.

It is when the man and woman unite,

In the shadows of the night,

The silence broken by a moan,

In that moment of ecstasy,

And the ride to fantasy,

The stillness after the storm.

It is when I held your hand,

Ever so delicately,

Lest my heart stop its beat,

And the moment took my breathe away.

And as I led the blind old man,

Right across the street,

That gentle pressure on my hand,

Told me many a tale,

Where light was only darkness,

As the moments ticked away,

And as a smile lit his face,

I knew he was there,

In that moment of darkness,

Lit by divine grace.

Every moment, a lost moment,

And they pass you by,

They have frozen in time,

Though the clock keeps ticking away,

Defined the meaning of your life.

THE JOY OF MOTHERHOOD

THE JOY OF MOTHERHOOD

I write this on the eve of the first birthday of my grandson ‘Moksh’. I was prompted to write this by a mail which I received from my daughter. She rang me up in the morning and asked me to read her mail at once, she said “Dad I just wrote a poem and I want you to read it immediately”. I was pleasantly surprised, for I had thought her very earthy, very grounded for her to indulge in such pursuits. Emotional she is, and she would express it with a good hug or through tears in her eyes. But with the birth of Moksh I found a new resolve, a new strength, a new purpose on her face and in her movements. She seemed to radiate a happiness that seemed beyond definition and I understood that it was ‘The Joy of Motherhood’.

All said and done fathers do love their children with equal passion and they also do express that in different ways, they always project that element of protective cover in their actions. But the bonding between the baby and the mother starting with the umbilical cord can never be replicated in any other relationship. The birth of the child brings in that fulfilment, a deep sense of release after having undergone the pain of labour of pregnancy. She sees a part of her, her very own in her arms when she holds the baby after birth. The bond strengthens as she continues to feed it from her own body. I as a man cannot fully understand the emotions that she undergoes, I can only watch the subtle changes that come over her personality and try to understand but can never experience.

Thus I have watched my daughter over the last year change, into a woman with a passion, a purpose and a face lit up with a sense of fulfilment. She had also found a way of expressing those emotions in the form of a few lines which she thought would be etched into the memory of her child as he grows up to remind him of the love she will always have for him. A fitting gift from a mother to her child on his first birthday, What better gift can there be?

“To Moksh my son on his first birthday

As the year passed me by,
I looked,
For a purpose to standby,
And now I look to see
the future in your eyes.
My purpose today my son,
Is to widen your horizon,
To be able to see the stars,

Invisible to the naked eye.

Happy Birthday Dear Moksh.”

(written by my daughter Svaathi) 

AN ODE TO ‘THE SPARROW’

Nearly a month ago there was a newspaper report which said that sparrows are rarely sighted nowadays and as per the latest census of sparrows based on sightings there were only about two thousand and odd of them in Chennai and were seen only in certain areas of the city. I read it and did not think about it very much at that time.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise when in the morning I heard a chirping sound on the balcony, an unmistakable sound. I knew that it was a sparrow so I tip toed and peeked into the balcony. There it was sitting on the grill and chirping away and was soon joined by its mate. A sighting which gave me immense joy. I realised that I had missed my feathered friend all this while. The last time I saw a sparrow was a few years ago and that to under tragic circumstances. As it chirped and flitted across my drawing room it suddenly came within the range of the ceiling fan, was hit and dropped down dead. As I slowly picked up the lifeless body, took it to corner of the garden in the colony and placed it there, I was overcome by a sadness which I am unable to explain.

I watched both of them as they tried to build a nest in the pocket of my trousers which was left there to dry. I could not afford losing a pant and thought that I would give them a better option when I hung a pouch there for them to build their nest. They did inspect it for a day or two as I watched their efforts. I was hoping that they would take permanent residence there but after three days they did not come. I am still hoping they will return as I wait for the chirping sound in the mornings. I am waiting.

Sometime ago I had written ‘An Ode to The Banyan tree’ and posted it in my blog. Even now I remember the Banyan tree with fondness and due reverence. The two banyan trees that come to my mind are the banyan tree in front of my school on whose branches we used to climb and swing down its branches, and the great Banyan tree in the Theosophical Society in Chennai which is more than four hundred years old and could accommodate more than three thousand people under it.

Imagine a tiny little insignificant sparrow sitting somewhere on one of the branches of the banyan tree. Both have left their imprints in my life. The Banyan Tree has symbolised all that was parental and overwhelming, evoking feelings of reverence and awe, while the Sparrow has symbolised all those undiluted joys of childhood.

So it is with sadness I watched them go, one with the sorrow of having lost a parent and the other a sadness at watching your children grow up and go away.

                                                   

An Ode to ‘ The Sparrow’

My dear little sparrow,

Where have you been?

It’s many a morrow,

Since you were seen?

Have you been robbed

Of your little nest,

A place to comeback,

And take some rest?

A place you can call,

Your very own,

Watch all your kids,

Till they have grown;

And finally one day,

They would fly away,

To find their own mate,

To find their own way;

As you sit gazing at the sky,

You hear your mate’s far away cry,

Then you spread your wings,

Soar away once again.

So it was with joy,

And a strange sort of thrill,

I watched you sitting,

On my window grill,

Then chirping and flitting,

From wall to wall,

Searching for a corner,

In my dining hall.

Soon you found,

There was no space,

You flew away,

To find a better place.

So I hung a little pouch,

On the balcony wall,

Hoping that you would find

This closer to your call.

Oh! where have you gone,

My dear little friend,

For there are no nests,

In and around,

Have you been driven away,

To a far off land,

Or have you just gone,

Never to return.

The pouch still hangs,

On the balcony wall,

And I wait every morning,

To hear your chirping call. 

A MATTER OF OPINION

A Matter of Opinion

Let me not sermonise,

What is right and what is wrong,

For your life is only Yours,

Its for you to live and die.

Who am I to tell you why,

The grass is green,

Or blue is the sky,

You may think it otherwise.

As I sit on the shore,

I find the sea so sublime,

You may say it frightens you;

As I listen to the waves lash,

I feel the stirrings of the soul,

But you may say,

Its marking time.

So who am I to tell you why,

For your life is Yours,

Its for you to live and die.

When I listen to that soulful tune,

As it comes floating from afar,

The song of that solitary reaper,

Evokes a melancholy in my heart,

Memories of a day that made us part,

But I know you will say,

Its nothing but a woman’s cry.

So who am I to tell you why,

For your life is Yours,

Its for you to live and die.

When I stood and gazed,

At the painting on the wall,

In wonderment of the hand

that held the brush,

And brought to life

all the shades of the sublime,

You just stood, then moved on.

So who am I to ask you why,

I had stood and you moved on,

For its your life and you decide.