Going Is Life
I shall return, as when the marketplace breaks up, the hawkers turn each to their own path; as when morning grows, the dew fades silently from the meadow, from the tree-leaves, from the gold-rimmed temple spire into the heat of the sun.
Life too drains and fades and slips away without pause. From branch falls the flower, from flower the fragrance, from memory the last clear ache, from shared dreams tears, and from tears the scattered, broken sighs.
Everything goes. And in that going lies the true note of life. For in the end, all must depart—all of us, all things.
Then who stood waiting in the path, who kept vigil? It grows unclear. Everything slowly recedes behind the veil.
The Thousand Faces of Mother
In how many forms you stand before us! Birthgiver, life-bestower, shelter-giver. You are spread across the fields, the banks, the borderland forests, the generous expanse of distant villages. Sometimes you are fierce, fractured, sharp as a blade; at other times tender, verdant, calm and blessed as a woman with flowers braided in her parting. In one hand your lamp of wisdom, in the other the weapon of protection.
But Mother, we never truly came to know you. Begging for another's affection, not understanding our own kinship's worth, how many times did we leave our own home, seeking solace at a stranger's door!
Now we must learn again: within hatred lies no shelter; not even in blood—but flowers bloom in the heart's warmth. As the seed breaks to birth the open rose, so through darkness comes the red glow of dawn.
So, Mother, let all your children—the lost, the errant, the bewildered—return to your courtyard now. To your shelter, your mercy, your truth.
The Dialogue That Continues Even After Death
Now I shall simply gaze toward the sky, breathe the wind's scent, learn Mrigashira and Orion in the deep night. Yesterday's rain was so beautiful; today that very water pools in the courtyard, turned to mud. How easily time's hand changes form.
All day long—nothing but rushing. Trams, buses, ledgers, office balance sheets, then the endless queues of hospitals. Life's weight wears away the days; even breath seems not our own.
But now, when the hour of death seems to settle all around, I shall be like a man serene and clear and turned inward, gazing only at the sky. Staring into its melancholy, its solitude, its deep darkness.
And then, silent in the depths of my salt-laden breast where another person dwells, I shall speak to them without sound. Only watching their face, in my own way, as long as I wish, for whatever time remains mine.
Finding Myself Lost in the Crowd
Sometimes it seems that someone calls to me from deep within my blood, this way and that, in a voice unclear yet intimate and close. Sometimes that call mingles with the sound of wind; sometimes it hides in the silence of falling leaves; sometimes it dwells in grass wet with dew, in its unbroken green. As if someone speaks my name, calling from the invisible, calling again and again.
A shadowed presence walks constantly at my side. Yet whenever I try to find it—in work, in the whirlwind of busyness, in the noise of words and intimate circles—it slips away into some unknown crowd, eludes me.
Still the calling does not cease. From the depths of my chest, even in sleep, it calls my name.
Then I stand before the mirror. I see that after I move, the shadow moves too, a moment behind. As if it were me, and yet it is not me.
Still Words Are Woven
Even now, perhaps somewhere, poetry is still being written. Though this time's surroundings seem swallowed by the pitiless jaws of brick and sand and stone; the air carries the poison stench of burned diesel.
Along the paths, the colorful scarves of easels flutter, yet those same paths are again swallowed by procession after procession.
And yet, even amid all this, sometimes the green of grass arrives in some signal and endures; with paper cones of chestnuts in hand, some people spend a little time absorbed in the yellow folds of the fading afternoon. That smallness is not without meaning—there too lies a soft interlude of life.
These days, many people have no work, their pockets empty, not even an umbrella over their heads. Lack, weariness, uncertainty stretches across everything.
And yet the wonder is this: even at such a time, somewhere or other, some words of poetry are being sown. Rain falls beyond the window, and in the depths, someone continues to write.