Quest

2:38PM

Winter has almost passed,
The air no longer bitter cold,
A thrush sings in joyous relief,
The early flowers are abloom.
Yet why do you stay, little leaf?

The tree is bare, but for you.
A new garment awaits within,
Soon her branches will dazzle green,
Her young ones restless for their first spring,
Yet why do you persist, old little leaf?
What joy in this wrinkled life?
What happiness do you seek,
The previous spring has not brought?

Spring then came, in all its glory,
Winter coats hung at home,
And parks were filled with shrieks of joy.
Yet when I trudged home every night,
He was still there; browner than ever,
Fragile, and trembling in every gust,
But he was still there.
Oh yes, he was there.

Then summer’s harsh sun beat down strong,
The heat so intense,
That my breath seemed to cool the air around.
Dreams were dreamt,
Drenched in summer sweat.
Yet when the sun rose on another day,
He was still there, right outside.
Not even this angry summer,
Could break his stubborn will.

Autumn then arrived, and how!
Like a startling beauty entering a room,
Every eye watching her,
Every word frozen in awe.
Scarlet leaves, fiery and fierce,
Like flames, they danced on every tree.
Yet, he watched with a knowing air,
As if to say:
‘The star doth burn bright before it dies’

Soon even autumn slunk away, now old and forgotten,
Rustling leaves covered the streets,
And every tree was bare again,
As far as one could see.
All, but one.
He still stood; withered, old and shrunken,
Yet, he still stood.

Winter’s first snowfall brought me out,
As soft, white flakes covered the land.
Below that tree, in the dead of night,
I gazed up in wondrous thought.
What were you in a life before,
That you should have a will so great?
What’s your purpose, little, old leaf?
Why do you stay and stay and stay?

Then in the stillness of the dark,
He left his home on his own,
No wind could tear him away,
No rain could beat him down.
Yet as I watched, standing right below,
With untold grace, he drifted into my palm.
As I held him in tender grief,
I realised right then, why he’d stayed.
I know not if it was my saddened mind;
In a voice so clear and yet so quiet,
He spoke in silence to my heart:
I am not a leaf.
I am your will that bows to none.
I am your Self that knows no defeat.
I am your strength and joy within,
That ebbs not, even at the hour of death.

5:30PM - The Lotus Within

Don't teach me philosophy now brother,
Oh, not tonight dear friend.
Don't tell me to think even more.
I have thought before aplenty,
And it never led to anything,
But, yes, more thoughts.

Tonight, let me sing from my heart,
Let me hear His haunting tune again.
Or let me dance, just let me dance!
Let me go where no words will ever go,
There, my Beloved has promised an eternal spring.
I don't need to knock,
Just enter, He said.
Just enter.

5:30PM

I saw someone spell a word wrong and thought, “Ah why can’t they stop butchering the English language”. Upon further reflection it occurred to me that I was being inordinately snobbish because of a certain assumed mastery over a system of man-made communication. A tool to make ourselves understood, that’s all it is. Any language. By nature of being man-made, language can never be perfect.

Anyone who has encountered a few words in English would be quick to spot how ridiculous the choice of spelling for certain words are – queue. Say what? You would think they would pronounce ‘cough’ like ‘dough’, but surely they could at least spell it ‘coff’. But then no one might fancy visiting Coffs Harbour with a name that sounds as contagious as that.

So what am I being so nose-in-the-air-ish about, in making sure English is spelt the right way? I saw a sunset the other day. The kind of sunset which blows you away and makes you wonder just how many shades of colour there must be on God’s palette. And I pondered, how do I describe what I am seeing? How do I describe as colours melt into each other, changing shades with every passing second? How do I describe the brilliance of light as it sets the clouds on fire and contrasts with the long shadows it casts on the grass at the end of day? How, just how, do I describe this ‘sunogasm’ unfolding before my eyes? I suppose the answer is, you don’t .

Words could never become a sunset just as singing about food is never going to make you less hungry. Reminder: It’s just a tool, silly! What good is mastery over a man-made language when you watch the cloudy Milky Way stretch for millions and millions of miles over your head on a perfectly dark night far away from the city lights? What do you say, when you realise you are but just a dot on the earth, in a solar system which is just a dot among 200,000,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way that is in a universe that has billions of galaxies? Just shut up and LOOK. And you thought TV was entertainment?

Through words we try to encapsulate the world, 'understand' the universe, break it up into ideas and concepts and seal the boxes with neat little nametags. But all it does is take away the experience of things. Can we open up our awareness to allow the universe to flow into us, without trying to break it up into ideas and words? Can we let go of our fetish for words and concepts and sometimes just 'be'? There is a beauty in things, a beauty about the universe, which you can only feel completely once you have let go of these crutches

6:54PM - Hours

Hours have this ephemeral quality, or it seems so, at least of late. They are not the perfect units of Time that we take them to be. They hide, they duck, they skip a beat and they melt into each other. An hour becomes two..or was that three!? Who knows? We blink our eyes and we are elsewhere, as if caught in an unending, terrifying ride through a dark tunnel only to emerge in flashes of daylight in between the speeding, blind obscurity.

March? Seriously? 2010? Wasn't that one of those weird years in the distant future in which science fiction tales take place? My clock ticks away without a care, a distant derivate of the incessant tick-tock in some observatory in Greenwich.

Is that the chirping of birds outside my window? 5am. Seriously?

6:50PM - Loss

I still reach out to hug you at nights.
It’s not out of hope, I just forget.
Why are my dreams so clueless?
As if the mail with news hasn’t reached there yet.

If only my dreams knew too,
That Sunday mornings in bed are no longer lazy,
Waking up wouldn’t be so hard.
Grief administered in gentle doses 24-7,
Is better than being punched in the guts every morning.

There are two pillows still.
And your bolster, although I hated it on some nights.
I haven’t changed the sheets yet,
I don’t know when I will.
Maybe I won’t.

6:49PM - Listening to the Harp

Today I tried to write,

But my ink had dried and hardened.

Invisible words make no poem.

Maybe I have forgotten how to listen,

To listen to the words which become ink.

Maybe I’ve just become a little deaf.



Why don’t I hear the harp,

That plays in Guthema’s heart.

It is always there, you say.

Like the music in an elevator.

Empty or full,

It’s always there, you say.

Maybe I just need to understand,

That there are no two harps,

But one.

That there are no two hearts,

But one.

2:42AM

It's amazing to see people who have found what they REALLY want to do in their lives. They bring a sort of passion and excitement to their lives that is missing in those who meander direction-less. I was watching a documentary about this explorer, extreme adventurer called Mike Horn and it is fascinating how his mind works. He surfed the amazon river from the mountains across the continent to the sea on a board, went around the equator on foot, bike, boat etc without any engine power and did the same around the north pole, the last of which took two years.

He said every day that goes by without having learnt something new is a waste of a day in your life. Are we really making something of our lives or are we letting is slip by? I learnt something new today from him and that is passion and complete focus. He was so one-tracked in his mind that he would do WHATEVER it took, to complete his goal. Giant will-power. Brute will-power. He injured his knee and yet set across the length of the amazon river which took about 6 months of living off the land and water, although he rebroke his knee cap early on in the journey. Why is it hard to sit down for 3 hours and read and write something in contrast?

1:22PM

Since when did words begin to scare me?
Evoking dread, seeds blooming into mute inadequacy.
I was once a poet, a magician.
Words flew off these fingers like an endless bubbling spring.
Why does it seem all barren now, a dry parched desert?
Or maybe it's just been night, a lazy good night's sleep.
Lanka is under siege, the battle almost over.
And yet Kumbakarna sleeps, no tossing and turning for him.
What will awaken the giant, shred his content slumber?
Where is the cacophony of marching elephants and drums?
Where is that dreaded alarm clock?

6:52PM

I HAVE TO GET CRACKING

2:58PM

5:24PM - Prajapati Awakens

Stillness.

No sound, no wind, no moon, no stars.

There was only One.

He breathed.

He breathed in silence, “I am”

Who knows whence He came?

No thought, no desire, no creation. Yet.

“Yeah, I am”

If time had existed, many a million years would have passed.

But there was neither a past nor a future, not even a now.

In silence arose the first question, “Who is?”

The emptiness trembled in anticipation.

“Who is?”

And then began Time,

A silvery thread of light speeding towards the endless edges,

Backward and forward,

And instantly there was eternity in the past and in the future,

Time wiping out the possibility of its own genesis.

He asked only the one question ‘Who am I?’

The question was Tapas

The questioner was Tapas,

The answer too, was Tapas.

In Tapas, He burned.

Out of that austerity, arose sacrifice.

With joy, He gave himself up.

The Father gives himself in sacrifice,

Like His son wouldst one day give his flesh and blood.

From Him sprang forth the worlds many.

Galaxies and gravity, mind and music,

All made from His own marrow.

In sacrifice, He became the many.

Cleaving His own heart, He breathed life into existence.

And today, we search for Him, the first-born.

“Where is He? Where is He?

When will He come, the King of Kings?

Do I find Him in the church, mosque or temple?”

The way back is the same.

Out of sacrifice is born austerity,

Out of austerity, the question – “Who am I?”

Dwell upon the primordial question for this indeed unlocks the door.

Behold the answer oh Prajapati,

Behold thine own face.

2:41AM

What makes a difference in our lives? When I turn back and look at my life, spread behind me like a map, what stands out? What do I remember? What makes me smile? What moves me?

I remember loved ones, I remember dawn, I remember kisses, I remember solo-trips, I remember sacred rivers, I remember moments of truth - those heart to heart talks, and I remember a moment of Truth, I remember walks in the crisp air, I remember beaches, I remember songs, I remember dancing, I remember love, I remember teary-eyed poems, I remember the evening sky as the sun danced on the ocean, oh I remember butterfly-kisses, I remember that rave, I remember some friends, I remember hugs, I remember a starving man and the guilt, I remember a moonlit night on Fraser Island, I remember childhood lies greeted by love, I remember inspiration, I remember the Himalayas and I remember Koh Phangan, I remember some msn chats, I remember wanting to be like dad, I remember the dark monsoon skies, I remember first days of school in June, soaked shoes in torrential rain, I remember kissing the ground, I remember books, I remember a couple of movies, I remember questions that would make my heart ache with ignorance, I remember moments of stillness.

All these, I accept. Now and in the future. The rest I reject, I do not remember you. You are not me.

10:27PM

There is a moment in the life of every generation when that spirit of hopefulness has to come through if we are to make our mark on history. -

President Barack Obama

1:40AM

When I was in my early teens, history lessons were a mixture of boredom and comedy thanks to a slightly eccentric history teacher of peculiar mannerisms and a tendency to flirt with the girls. History – hard-to-remember dates and names of emperors, strange sounding dynasties and a distant national struggle for freedom which seemed best relegated to its regal place in those thick, dusty books.

Perhaps it is a testimony of our education system that the living dynamic stories of nations and civilisations can be made to seem about as appealing as pickled pig’s feet. It is only in recent years that I have begun to appreciate the rich tapestry of lives, knowledge and myths that have brought us to the doorstep of the present. To understand the world today without truly imbibing the past is an attempt doomed to failure. We are but expressions of the waves of change that have swept through the world over decades and centuries. Our present is deeply rooted in the history of our forefathers, our lives built upon the toil of others and the blood on many a sword.

If through religion, we try to seek our place in the cosmos, through history we seek our place in Time. Time the conqueror, Time the slayer, Time which has brought civilisations to dust. The historical imagination (to steal from Mills’ sociological imagination) is at once an experience in profound humility as well as outright fantasy.

To truly understand that for many thousands of years, hundreds of millions of people have lived and died, almost all of them forgotten in the deluge of time, is to begin to question our individual-centred perception of life. Magnificent cities arose on the banks of the mighty ancient rivers and yet with the ebb of time, there is nothing left but buried ruins that archaeologists dust away with that little brush of theirs.

1:23PM

I sat on a rock on top of the bare hill. The sunset over the forested valleys around me began to look surreal as the mist crept up from the winding river, engulfing the trees bit by bit. Surreal. The sun bounced off the fluffy-white tree tops, strands of gold knitted with the softest cotton. There was a stillness to the evening which began as a serene calmness and then as I watched, right before me, it flipped. An eerie silence. Eerie. When did that word enter my mind? I wished I hadn't thought of it.

Surreal became sinister. The evening rays were weak and the mist had taken a life of its own. It swirled and turned, taking varying forms and shapes. Within minutes, the entire landscape would change, instantly transporting me from one location to another. Even my memory began to fail me. How did I get here? Where is this place? Panic. Death. The heavy mist was creeping upon me from all sides and I could feel the chill in the air. The atmosphere felt ominous. Yet, I did not move, I dared not.

The wind picked up and in the cold, I was thankful. Movement, discernible movement. The lack of which, is why one fears a corpse. But as darkness descended, the wind carried sounds to me from where the twisted trees and its gnarled branches once were. Grey pools of crawling fog, lay spread out over the valley, soaking in the darkness, turning black. A black mist. I did not think this was possible. I could hear again those sounds in the wind. They were not words, it didn't sound like any language I've heard before. It didn't sound human.



http://www.pbase.com/falcn/image/68501900

4:57PM

I have stories to tell, I wish I had words to tell them all. I have images stuck in my head, little staccato moments caught in camera flashes. I have moments of mental inversion, a topsy-turvy world where I see through someone else's mind. I have moments of clarity when the mind slows down and I can see the possibility of what could be. I have moments of weakness, I have thoughts of despair, I have highs of wonderment and I have lows of wretchedness. And I have questions....many. Could this be what it is to be human?

I want to be a photographer and capture the life of the city, grim skies against the Kremlin in Moscow, a flaming dusk against the skyline of Sydney, the flow of lights, cars and hope along the streets of Vegas on a Friday night. I want to be a backpacker and let myself sink into the depths of the city's character. I want to soak in its juices, feel the life of Melbourne pulsing through my veins, know the streets of NY like the back of my hand. I want to be a bum, under a bridge on Chicago River, know what it is to be homeless, know that 'we' are the only true sons of this city, for every part of it is home. No doors, no locks, no mine and yours.

The city is just one of us, a tad bigger.  It's alive and it has stories to tell, hundreds of thousands of them. It's a she, because I cannot understand her. She reveals herself and then shrouds herself in mystery. She has moods, infinite shades of them. She is anonymous despite her well-known name and she confers that status upon us, as we wade through the evening crowd on Oxford Street in London. Sydney's Oxford street, half a globe away, rooted in its bohemian days,  embraces a quirky capitalism, traversing the grey, undefined areas of sexuality. "Am I straight, lesbian or bi?", she asks.

The city is alive, yeah it is! If only you stopped by and looked at 3am as sounds die down, you can feel her breathe. Her sighs, her sobs and even her passionate moans.

7:57PM

I wish I could write poems everytime I sat on my computer with the word document open before me, like I used to. I've lost count of the number of times in the past many months, I've started writing a line before having to close the file because nothing further would come. I think I'm not a writer/poet, I'm just a chaneller. If I were one, I would be able to write whenever I wanted. Maybe there are no muses flying around me like they used to. I should set up a muse trap in my bedroom.

I have my first lecture next week, it's as a guest lecturer in a course on Migration and Multiculturalism. I'm kinda worrying about it now. I want to be a fun lecturer but I think that comes along with years/months of practice and confidence. It's quite different from my usual job of being a tutor,where there is a lot more interaction and comments.

7:34PM - Rasa Unmasked

4:35PM

My housemate who is from Hongkong laughs like a retard. She goes into these laughing fits where she makes these crazy out-of-breath sounds in between laughing like she was just pulled up from underneath water after 2 whole minutes. Plus she is messy and doesn't clean up after her. Safe to say that she is not my 'favouritest' housemate.

Wow i think this is my first ranting post in many years. I'm proud of myself! :D

Current mood: bitchy

11:03AM - Annul Mele - Vaaranam Ayiram

I translated the rest of the song. Some of the words might be second guessing as im not a native Tamil speaker, I checked against two crappy translations available on the net...they were very crappy. hehe. Also excuse minor poetic license.



The dewdrops that smother these burning embers.
A little bird fluttering aimlessly.
The raindrops that seek to quench a tree.
All these, she has become.
Each eyelash pines in separation,
Sleep itself stands frozen,
Oh, why not let these barriers crumble now?

In which gentle breeze
Will the flower buds bloom?
In which divine moment
Will the doors of the heart be thrown open?
One little thorn still pierces
My heart, oh my heart.
Yet a glance from those two eyes soothes me.
Immersing me into an unconscious reverie.
Let the story of this body wither away,
Let this remain as the stain on the moon.

(Annal mele..)

We crossed paths in dreams,
Was it a few times or was it many?
Under the dark night sky we wandered,
Don’t you remember those times?
As the sea crashes on both these weary shores,
Will the waves swell even more?
When these two lives tremble at the precipice,
Will not the path be revealed? (Not sure what is kalangaraye)
As your waves lash me,
Reaching the shore has become but a forlorn dream.

(Annal mele)