poetry*

the trick is to empty the mind of all thoughts.

i have noticed how thoughts bog me down--thoughts of this and that--planning, scheming, wishing, fretting... always struggling to become.

the unburdening of thoughts is easier said than done. one cannot do it by trying. it has to happen without trying.

watch passively each thought that comes in through the door; watch it do its work.

then, by and by, you find it leaving by the same door it had entered.

only in the spacious silence of this emptiness is there poetry.

writing poetry is not important. you should not turn it into another burden. just be... as when you were a child, seeing everything for the first time, seeing the stupendous wonder of it all.

there is a different quality to the state of just being.

suddenly you begin to feel the wind on your face, see the clouds drifting in the skies and hear the birds singing in the trees. you feel your pulse beating in the arteries of every being around you. the whole flows into you.

then there is an overflowing.

in this overflowing is the flowering of poetry.

writing it can never be the same.

*****
(*letter to a friend confronting writer's block.)
*****

question

you are a winner
when you win;
you are a loser
when you lose.

has it anything to do with you?

*****

Aum *

this moment of consciousness i share with the child just born somewhere
taking its first breath wailing
and with my friend here in the hospital bed
gasping out his last breath.

his children chant the glory of Ram.
the whole room resonates.

beyond the window the sky resonates.
an eagle circles unhurried
among the clouds,
like a duster erasing all statements,
all beginnings and endings.

*****