knowing

there is a conducting wire running between us, each end charged and receiving, the flow alternating by turns, yet static in its motion.

know of this in quick-spreading tentacles flowing like rivulets to everything around--the trees that grow in the valley and the birds that fly in the air, the people in the throes of a plethora of emotions and them that have no emotions, the why and the wherefore of it, and also the boy, watching the chameleon, its flower neck bellowing, your heart ticking...

you know you know the moment he will transfer the toffee-stick from his right hand to left and pick up the self-same stone you now see lying there on the road at his feet and you know when he will, with a flinging swing of the whole of his body, agile as a catapult, send it shooting to destination.

and yet you know the chameleon, with a flicking leap a whisker and a whiff of touch distance away from woe and perdition, will smooth sail over to the branch yonder and disappear...

*****

perfection

i fall on my knees and take your palm in both hands and, pressing it to my lips, plead: make me perfect!

make me perfect as a perfect square, a perfect circle, a perfect sphere--let it be as you wish. let me be as soft clay in your hands. mould of me your ultimate art.

with your fingers you twist my ears till it pains and then you push me back and skip your way down the slope, leaving me alone on the hillside. as the skies darken and the stars come out, i turn into a night flower, petal by petal, flowering...

*****

"it manifests itself in...the impulse towards perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secret immortality"--Sri Aurobindo.

*****

creativity

the sublime heights of creativity
is where there is no gravity.

there you are like a satellite floating
in a geo stationary orbit,
not of this world and yet of it,
invisible,
acted upon by no outside force,
moving with the world in a state of perfect rest
in relation to everything over land, sea and air.

it is like when you step out of your palace
in the dead of the night
and you wander into the wide open spaces,
come to a river,
take a dip and sit under a tree,
with your legs crossed, eyes closed and spine straight,
turning weightless into a flame,
burning smokeless.

*****

solidity

the wind blowing into us,
flapping through our coats,
the sun blinding into our eyes
through the canopy of the trees,
backlit,
fanning their heavy boughs
as we pass,
each step a tangible solidity
in the solidity of the immutable,
you and i,
neither apart,
nor in any modulated differentiation in the odour our sweat,
panting...

*****

reverse gear

now that we speak of the foetus
growing in your womb,
suckled by the love of our ancesters,
now that we speak of the sun
and the earth and the planets,
hurtling down the milky way,
of time shrinking to this moment,
let us stop,
take a break,
and consider this:

you and i flow in a linear direction,
from point 'a' to 'b' to 'c',
from a foetus in the womb
to a newborn baby to a bubbling little child
to the time when we were in deep love
to a mom and grandma and then to dust.
how would it be if life were to flow
in the selfsame linear direction on the reverse gear,
from point 'c' to 'b' to 'a',
from dust to grandma to mom and the girl of my dreams
to the bubbling little joy i knew you were in childhood
to the bliss you were as a baby
to the no-mind expanses of a foetus...

hand in hand, dearest,
we swift-sail down the milky way.
see--there is the sun, here the earth
and there the other planets
and a million million twinkling stars.

*****

when i see you thus in tears

when i see you thus in tears,
dearest,
i place myself in the context of everything
that had happened in the untraceable history of existence
and everything
yet to happen in the eons to come,
as the sun and the earth and the other planets
swift-sail down the milky way
on their journey
without a destination.

i curl myself into this moment,
a foetus,
and vanish,
along the placenta linking heartbeats,
into the throb of your pulse,
the taste of the salt of your cheeks,
and the pain of the little toe
you had just now stubbed
against this sharp stone
by the wayside.

*****

at your touch

at your touch i turn into a bubble,
a bubble,
balanced,
on the tip of a thorn,
on a windless night,
the moon shining high.

*****

michelangelo

another day,
i open the creaking doors of the attic
at the abandoned house,
and amidst the cobwebs,
old trunks, broken furniture and brass vessels,
find the masterpiece,
rolled up and neatly tied.

i unroll the canvass,
stretch its corners straight,
and the picture hits me like a blast and i reel,
struck by a resemblance
engraved in memory.

later,
at the art gallery,
i linger long looking for faces
lighting up with recognition.
but the women come and go,
talking just of michelangelo...

*****

distrust

lie with me,
you jingle,
tell me lies.
when only the truth you speak
all the time,
those random lies of the past,
they all turn true!
that kind of trust i distrust!

*****

the secret

thus with a smile and a promise
you take me down the hills from deep woods
into an open meadow,
where graze eighteen cows, their butter-bright sheen,
shining,
luminous on the dew-wet green,
sunlit distilled still,
of all times gone and all times yet to come,
four-dimensional...
and as we pause breathless, you tell me,
listen...listen...
don't you hear, a sound?

*****

at the centre of nowhere

then you take me to a place at the centre of nowhere,
where we see
all sights for the first time,
hear the sound of music for the first time.
we link our hands,
and neither you nor i have a name anymore,
our breath is the breath of the wind,
our blood the sap of the earth.

*****