Speck

The Achilles heel is always caught in the blind spot
as I ride with confidence from darkness to light.
An ancient pendulum of light and darkness I am
caged in the nefarious clock house of survival. 
Thinking it is only a speck of dust
I walk heavy but lighten when I reach
the dead end of a conclusion
that I am on this speck of dust.

Recrossing

Every heart is a broken one.
Look around and you can hear
its shards breaking into dust
under the cold feet walking away
from the defining moments. 
They all seem to vanish 
in their great mid-acts. 
She consoling you.
He walking by your side. 
And finally, you looking at yourself 
in the mirror and resolving 
that your heart still needs recrossing. 

The Master

Books from the master are slim.
They seem to measure the volumes
of rumpled up pages lying around
in a world of wicker baskets.
In view of all those wasted hours 
this collection that I am sifting through 
alone is the most prized one. 
A plant that flowers once in a lifetime. 
Why would such a plant survive?
Sneaking itself  from the predators 
that are everywhere, prowling like prose. 
"But why would poetry survive 
the onslaught of time?", the master asks
from the lofty book jacket with an impish smile.


(Billy Collins)

Trouble

A mountain can take it
A blade of grass can fake it.
But all of us here in between 
run for cover when it's seen.

Traffic island

Immobile in a river island of traffic
that is lapping around a long truck
I notice the trees on the roadside
waiting more patiently than me
for things to clear up so that
they can finally grow some leaves.
Just that afternoon, you were talking
about leaving the city and you said
you were counting time and money
more carefully than ever.
We agreed to that whatever in the
warmth of affirmative echo of friendship
and rowed the next day the usual.
But now I see everybody, walking around
with the engines revved up.
The compasses point homeward.
A home where we are all headed
once things clear out.

Caved

When I learnt from the guide book that
the hills have been scooped out for creating these caves,
I felt the renewed force of the chisel working
the air around me and making way for my 
superficial meditations. When I looked at the ceiling 
sculpted and painted centuries before Michelangelo,
an ache ran down my back twisted by the forceps of Time.
The ghouls, gods and the ordinary dancers on the panels
hopped me across centuries and the rock itself for a moment 
turned into fabric waving in a timeless wind. 
A flag of longevity raised in stone.


(Ajanta, Ellora)

The remaining

The ones who came from the same place.
The once inhabitants of that temple of birth.
The siblings, make one final circle.
A circle of the remaining
Into which sooner or later
each of them will disappear.
But life teems even in this shadow
of a dark door opened underground.
It lets out the cry of a child
seeking attention and pulls away
from the miner who is searching
with a lamp oozing darkness.
It drowns in silence the real sound
of the battle and the massacre
of the final day. And it questions,
who wants to stay longer?
Neither the decaying body
nor the assembled minds
that are calculating when
they would reach home and
what's for dinner, where
Sugars rush over the waters of life
at a meal of the good sigh.