A drop

I am

a drop

coursing through

the vein of life

lifted, swirled

peaked, troughed

in her flow

a hot ray

finds me

and i evaporate

i watch, i breathe

a cool stone

i seek

where i condense

formed anew…

A painted bowl

A painted bowl

a chronicle of life

a micro-earth

its rim, the horizon

its curved insides

the playground

of animals, humans, insects

one turning into another

men growing fangs

and lizard tails

salamanders who love

like you and I

lines, crisscross, zigzag

spirit paths for shamanic flights…

A painted bowl

– a macro-sky

a deep desire

a pit-stomach cry

of earth convulsed

into life,

like this body

fired by breath?

(This poem is inspired by the painted bowled of the Mimbres Indians, who lived in southwest New Mexico until the 12th century.)

Cold comfort

Winter’s here. In May, when the earth baked and the sky simmered, we thought we’d never live to see the heat die down. And now it has. The very air feels too cold to breathe. It goes through the nostrils and I can feel it chilling my lungs through and through. At night, for the longest while, the toes and soles of my feet are numb and frozen under my heavy quilt, my razai filled with beaten, fluffy cotton. 

The fingers that tap on the keyboard feel like two twigs, cold and lifeless. 

My mother the zen master is sick of hearing me complain about the cold. “Yesterday it was the heat. Today its the cold. Tomorrow it will be something else. Why don’t you learn to be patient?”

Ah, patience. And the art of surviving the cold. And the heat. And the heartbreak. And the suffering. 

Not just surviving. There’s something more, something else. Finding beauty, perhaps? Or the kernel of heat that lies enclosed within cold, the moment when one stops gritting and tightening against it, and allows it to flow through?   

Primal sound

He comes on stage, folds his hands in greeting, sits down. The light shining on him is too bright, too harsh. It won’t allow his magic to take root, grow, flow. They have to be dimmed. There, that’s right. Just enough so we can discern his form in still motion, and the expressions that arise and ebb on his mercurial face.

Silence hovers over the crowd like a krishna-hued monsoon cloud, heavy with anticipation. It’s rumbling with thunder now, unable to contain its own fullness. As his voice, and his hands, move from the earth to the sky, the cloud bursts into warm flashes of rain, drenching us with the furious beauty, the momentous suddenness, of his music.

Somewhere deep within, a snake uncoils and frees itself, rising all the way to the crown chakra.

Somewhere in the universe, a sun implodes.

Somewhere in the ocean, a pearl forms.

Somewhere in  our collective consciousness, love begins. Once again.

First light

The fine hair

on the reeds

the delicate drops

of dew

on the bamboo leaf

the flurry of feathers

on birds’ underbellies

the clouds engaged

in erotic embrace

your eyes

my eyes

all catch

this first light

this first warm kiss

between

earth and sky…

Tears of light

A solitary tear

clings to the edge

of my left eye

for the longest while…

until I coax it

onto my finger

and hold it up to light…

Have you ever

seen sorrow

luminous and bright

and pain transformed

to unbearable delight?

Everyday magic

If you look long enough

into this magic tree

that’s taken root outside my window

here’s what you will see –

a lattice of leaves

transform mid-morning

into starry sky….

Street sounds,

motorcar horns

become

the musical clip-clop

of a horse…

cruel smoke and smog

filter through

as shape-shifting stardust…

and tears charmed

right out of my eyes

to become

drops of dew, drops of rain

on the leaves’ undersides…  

Lunar love

Astronomers, scientists

and all other rationalists

have ruined

celestial love!

By calling it ‘occultation’

and observing it

with telescopes

and other instruments

that measure distances

between the two lovers

 – Moon and Venus

they were, last night

drawing close

in slow seduction

until she lay

beneath him, above him

tongues and limbs intertwined

united in love…

Watch, if you will

but with love

and respect

for a sacred amour

Be a voyeur, if you will

But please,

not a data-notching scientist!