Rubaiyat of Season's Greetings

 

A bone deep peace that feels solid and not fragile,

that every day opens like a widening smile,

that if you stumble, there's a friend's hand close by

that steadies you and walks with you for a mile.

 

For all past anguish may the year bring you balm,

may wildflower bouquets of joys fill your arms,

may your paths lie under clear skies on hard earth,

the waters be navigable, deep and calm.

 

May each minute come mindfully and touch down

like gliding feathers, far too many to count

but may you be aware of their exact weight

before they leave - their size, shape, texture and sound.

 

May the year come in with slow, measured footfalls

and turn kindness to a widespread festival.

 

 

~~~

 

So...that's 2025 almost done and dusted, phew! Did it zoom past or what? Too much happening, I'm still out of breath. Hopefully, the next one will give us a break.

 

Happy New Year to you and yours! 

 

Time and Distance

 

I.

 

I once thought proximity doesn’t count -

wherever I am, I’ll still thrill to the sound

of your name, be able to recreate

the feel of my feet running on your ground.

 

I thought if I just closed my eyes I’d see

your vast skies spinning slowly over me

the sun and the stars don’t discriminate

and yet they now appear differently.

 

Is it my sight I’m losing, or my mind?

The exact textures of things left behind

become harder to recall and replicate.

The thrill’s the same, but something has gone blind.

 

Won’t matter how far I go – I thought that once

but in the end time is the greatest distance.

 

II.

 

I thought I’d be able to grope some recess

and find you, ever changing yet changeless.

Draw up the exact shape of fig and neem,

the acacias in the open wilderness.

 

Some of their limbs remain - that much is true.

The curve of highway, the straight avenue.

But the mind isn’t quite the thing it seems,

it loses the details without meaning to.  

 

I’m not the one to rail against the failings

of sight, and mind, of puny mortal things,

the systems of recall, blurred like a dream,

the lengthening of shadows, the last dimming.

I did think I’d carry you with me once

But time’s proved to be the farthest distance.   

 

III.

 

The sunlight lying in thick slabs on the floor,

but I cannot recall the tiles anymore.

The cement paving in the porch and back,

the size the glass panes were on the main door.

 

The numbers on some of the cars and the crunch

of gravel beneath their tyres. Being served lunch

on a green table cloth. The music tracks.

The crack in the tub. The smell of the sponge.

 

So a few remain – the trivial, the strange,

and strange are the filters chosen to arrange

the sequence, the way the trivia stacks

and what was changeless once begins to change.

 

I thought I could dream you up anywhere once.

But time has morphed itself into distance.

Harvest of hate

 

I'll go far away. Your hate and prejudice

will be like sand between my toes and won't stick,

fall off from my skin even as it dries -

not a grain nor crumb. Not an atom of it.

Not one yarn of this entire tissue of lies

will touch me, nested in a different life.

Nothing but rightful the balance of justice

not each thrust acid sharp silver keen as knives.

I will stand here steady on my own two feet

and what you've sown is what you'll have to reap

today, tomorrow or centuries hence -

food grains grow only where the waters run sweet.

You'll sit alone with your sharp words and weapons,

cold your fireside. And the harvest in ruins.

Reshaped

 

You stride back home. The grass is green. And soaking wet,

horses dotted on it. The smells of manure and sweat

rise in the air. The melee of muddy football,

rough, closer to the ground. Not the time for cricket.

 

The dog decides to pee against a vendor’s cart

the owner’s embarrassed, but you are, for your part

surprised there are vendors this early. Free for all

to the west – more than just your world’s fallen apart.

 

The sun’s veiled, but eye to eye with The Forty Two,

twenty years have come to a head – for them, for you,

two long decades of a low boiling, hard conflict

and neither they nor you alone know what to do.

 

Home’s not the rain, a field, a game, the land of birth,

- it’s where your heart finds its place and peace on earth.

Long valentine

There are deeper loves apart from humans,
the burnished copper of the sinking suns,
the sound of spinning wheels on laterite,
and heels on mud - the primal connections.

The acacias in their fortresses of thorns,
the smell of raindrops on the guinea corn,
the needlepoint of stars upon the night
on homing traffic and a faint air horn.

A love much deeper than skin-deep or flesh-, 
beyond the frames of every consciousness,
the instinct by which a leaf turns to light,
innate, intrinsic to its life process.

Carried over from each birth and rebirth
this long valentine to the sun and earth.

Don't worry, it's only poetry, it's all poetry

While I'm letting the ink dry on this verse,

come sit with me a minute. Nothing worse

than being forced to face an abstruse rondeau 

when you are not in the mood for those words.

So I won't recite anything to you.

Just rest yourself, do what you want to do -

feel, listen to this silence between us

because, after all, that's poetry too.

Yesterday was the local Poetry Festival - The Colours of Life. I was there with two of my poems. This is a yearly highlight for the Bahrain Second Circle poets, an evening of fun, sharing poetry that's sometimes serious and at others lighthearted. Smug as a bug in a rug - the final time this year methinks...or maybe not quite final...

November is the Writer's Retreat for NaNo, I don't do NaNo, but I go along for the retreat each year and get a short or some poetry out of it...inspirational to be in the same space as a bunch of dedicated writers at their craft. There's usually wine and bottomless coffee...a balcony with a seaview...a 5 star sunset...what else does a poet need?

Remiss

You get remiss, the fanlight, the wide doors,

the colours on the walls - nothing is yours;

still the steps are swept every day, kept clean,

a mat laid in rough welcome on the floor.

Heartaches, headaches over the right décor

for only a few days, then - as before -

either the grass beyond turns out too green

or walls close in, aren’t enough anymore.

But even the grass isn’t yours, never -

you dip your toes in it, never possess

a square inch of lawn, not even a blade;

and those blades themselves aren’t forever

all grass is flesh, lasts a minute or less

not too long before entire gardens fade.

Still on my rubai binge only the two above combined somehow, and then added a sestet - does that make it a valid sonnet? :)

Recently, at my local Poetry Circle, there was a debate on whether a poem should stand on its own, or have the context explained alongside it. I have always been in the 'stand-on-its-own' camp - I mean, if I have to explain the whys and wherefores of my poem, then obviously the poem's not doing its job!

Besides, a writer writes something with a certain meaning in mind, but often times the reader interprets it in a totally different way, and that is equally valid. And it's sometimes an a-ha moment for the poet too, to see the poem in a completely different light.  The whole process adds extra layers of meaning to the original writing, why narrow it down and lose the richness? That's been my take so far. In fact it could apply to any writing, not just poetry. 


In the Circle, most people (who are poets themselves obviously) thought the same as me, i.e. standalone, no context won.  I'd love to know what people here think?

Excitement for the A-Z building up, preps on, just a few posts left, I know I would do better if I stopped going back and tweaking and editing ad nauseum the ones already done and research/write the ones that need to be written...this is why writing 'as it comes' is so much easier, things are so much simpler when the post's rough and untidy :) Wow, end of this week we're into April and A-Z!  

Random rubais

Even if the lamp's made from gold
it cannot burn without a wick
which is from modest cotton rolled -
crucial is rarely aesthetic.

***

The heart shatters with the mirror, it’s old -

precious the memories more than the shards,

but together they reflect a thousand-fold

the flame and wick, the dark, the whole courtyard...

***

The tree wears a ring of birds like a diadem

and a few fireflies on itself - without the glow

they look just plain insects, ugly, not much to them -

a little dark is needed for their light to show.

That's what I've been doing this week, apart from trying to schedule A-Z posts that is - I've been writing rubais, which is the Arabic/Urdu/Hindi word for quatrains. Each quatrain or rubai is supposed to be complete in itself, at least that's the traditional rule, there are others too about syllable counts and such, those I happily ignore as per convenience.  These were written independent of each other, and at different times, do they seem connected? 

Readings

Everything draws to a close, all things –

words, wine, meetings with friends, evenings

pleated through with cursive laughter,

the delight of the deepest yearnings.

The flame that will choose to burn softer

before it drops down with the mothwings.

The breeze that feathers nights, after

the slow spiral of the hot mornings.

One by one the lines and the chapters

till the last, till there remains nothing.

Right there on the threshold! - For Gagan Preet and Kagaz

The heart full, and the words came paper-thin,

the sky outside was a stretched night’s parchment skin -

a tent over the earth and a silver gap

through which a pale moon poked a finger in.

She came by in that moonlight and her anklet

made no music, it gave away no secret;

that curve of heel and that flash of movement

once seen quite impossible to forget.

One heartbeat on the path, and then no more;

no trace was left on paved road or floor.

He ran out in the moonlight but no signs,

no footprints showed the way to her door.

Pale silver lay the path, beyond nothing,

the moon fluttered like a broken bird wing.

He walked home slowly. There beside his threshold,

a red tassel had fallen from her earring.

Continuing with the theme of love and the Eastern fixed form rubai, this poem goes out today for Gagan Preet Singh who is 21, a young graduate from Delhi University, a professional photographer and an entrepreneur, wow! Quite a few feathers in his cap at such a young age.

Gagan Preet won himself a blog post here in a contest, the second winner to do so, and he wanted this prize dedicated to his new start-up ‘Kagaz’.  Kagaz is a brand of lovingly crafted hand-made jewellery.  And jewellery and Gagan Preet’s name (Gagan means ‘sky’, and Preet is ‘love’ – a love for the sky) are the prompts for this poem.  I Know! Too much to be a coincidence, right? Both the winners connected to ‘love’ and coming at a time and season when love is in the air and on my mind more than usual! :)

I hope Gagan Preet enjoys reading the poem as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  Wishing him and Kagaz every success! May what you are looking for be found right beside your threshold :) It’s been absolutely amazing writing for both the winners (read the other poem here).

This unique contest was part of a pay-it-forward initiative at Buzzaria, my heartfelt thanks to the team there for this opportunity to participate.

~~~

A word here also about the A-Z Blogging Challenge which starts tomorrow and runs throughout April. All month long I will be posting the works of great poets and my own poems in response to them, every day except for Sundays.  There will be giveaways for the top commenters after the month is over, so do check back and make your opinions heard. 

Truth's a hymn : For Amarjeet and Gayatri

The primal source, first vines that exploded

into life, gone dormant now, but nothing’s dead.

The truth’s a hymn, whether each sang or not

and love is truth, even if they left it unsaid.

The tavern’s full, but there’s always a spot

for those ones that the great patrons forgot.

The crowds nudge closer to clear a little space

and the Saki sets a cup and pours a shot.

There’s always love, and truth, and a small place

for those who cannot sing, don’t know the ways.

The vine knows to bloom and offers its pressed

red gifts to those who love, and self-efface.

And the Saki knows them too, all those blessed.

Love’s immortal but too rarely expressed;

but she knows that nothing’s ever wasted,

nothing’s lost from the goblet of each guest.

This poem, based on the Eastern fixed form rubai, goes out today for Amarjeet (Amar), the husband of Gayatri Gahlaut.  Amar is a keen golfer and a sports lover, and Gayatri is a poetry fan. They live in Delhi and are fond grandparents to Reyansh.

Gayatri won herself a blog post here in a contest, and she dedicated the prize to her husband.  An amazing uncanny coincidence, as love is on my mind right now. Well, to be honest, love is always on my mind, but it seems to have a special weight and texture this season J Gayatri’s name (which is the name of a particular goddess in the Hindu pantheon, and also used to refer to a hymn to the same deity), and Amar’s name (which means immortal) combine to form the prompt for this post.  Amr, which is a popular name here in the Middle East where I live, incidentally, derives from the root-word for ‘long life’ in Arabic, another uncanny coincidence that blew my mind. 

I hope both Amarjeet and Gayatri enjoy reading the poem as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

This unique contest was part of a pay-it-forward initiative at Buzzaria, my thanks to the team there for this opportunity to participate.

First gold

Nature’s first gold is leaf, and grain;

far easier to love and obtain

than mere metal, however rare.

Yet grass is ignored, metals reign.

Another day at the circus

The space for dissent narrows to a thread,

violence now a religion, terrible bread

by which man insists on living alone,

heedless of what is defaced, mangled dead.

It's not a Valentine thing either

Love is such a short, thin and threadbare word,

so frequently used that it’s hardly heard.

I’ll love you more than you will ever know,

I’ll love you without threadbare being uttered.

Without the scents of flowers and of sandal,

without the showy moths and central candle.

I think I’ll love you but let the trite go

I won’t fashion your name into a ghazal.

Yet if someone should come upon my page

when I’m gone - in some future space and age -

he would know that the writer, long ago,
had loved beyond the limits of her language.

Redefined

How the years shred us, and the distance strips

the latent meanings, microscopic shifts

in unbidden words, slow rise of silences

morph the bonds, redefine relationships.

The cords are cut too early or too late,

knots loosen and tighten under the weight

of random things, arbitrary, adrift

at whims of currents and winds of fate.

fouR, paRed, spaRe and maRvellous

is for Rubai (yat)

The rubai is quite simply a quatrain, with the 1st, 2nd and 4th line containing the rhyme words, while the 3rd remains unrhymed.  This nifty bit of assymmetry is what makes it absolutely irresistible imho.  It's a bit like a truncated and pared down version of the ghazal, just the matla and maqta, without having to even bother with a radif and all.  

A rubai can be stand alone, or be part of a themed set (ooh, now why didn't I think of that before? so much easier than hunting for forms beginning with a fresh letter everyday!). Or they can be strung together as stanzas to form a single poem.  

The rules are easy to follow, and easygoing enough to let anybody say what they want without hemming them in with hemistich sizes or sticking to any specific syllable counts and such. Here is my stand alone rubai:

Where are the shells falling today?

I haven’t baked the bread, I haven’t got the goblet 

my hair’s still undone, the midday inarticulate; 

A plume of smoke has bloomed on the distant horizon 

maybe it’s you, maybe it’s someone I’ve never met.

A long time ago I used to be a market researcher in the Gulf (I am still one, I find market research sticks for life, but I am no longer in the same place) and all the Arabic speakers who ever responded to my questionnaires there had “writing verses” down as a hobby in their profiles.  No wonder, because the rubai is originally an Arabic form, taken many centuries ago to Persia with the Islamic conquest.  The Arabs personify everypoet, I think.  Their everyday language itself is lyrical, and in a way that's rather similar to Bengali!  

I have never had the chance of looking at questionnaires filled by Iranians, the native speakers of Farsi, but I am pretty sure that “writing poetry” would be a leisure activity with them too. Probably even bigger time than Arabs. 

The most famous rubaiyat writers/poets are Rumi, Hafiz and Khayyam, all native Persian speakers.  The greatest, most moving expressions of love, faith, and spirituality captured in four exquisite and exquisitely short lines.

Posted for the A-Z Challenge.