Water

What limitless qualities you have
a bard cannot sing all
O pure you are more than "faith"
"People and their call"

Flows freely like you do
I find not one thought
Albeit if I succeed in this quest
All philosophy would end, philosophers lost.

You destroy
as also you bring life
How can I understand you
and this eternal strife.

Nature is lucky
to have such a wonder offspring
We are the luckiest
for Water, with you, we are gone, none;
nobody, nothing.


-------------------------------

PS 11 Dec' 15 : Notice the self-importance in second stanza haha !

I watch as my friend plays his guitar

In a room darkened by warmth, with closed eyes,
I lay, my head over a pillow;
My friend sitting beside me;
feeling the cold heat on a Sunday afternoon.
I start to hum a song
And he picks up his guitar
(He got a guitar and he can make it talk)
and begins to play the stringed willow
and flows out vibrant notes in the small room
and he closes his eyes to sing along
and I watch in admiration and tangible happiness
and he sings with peaceful serenity
and his guitar sings along
and he finishes the song with silent joy
and he smiles at me
and I, in tranquility and realization of a kind,
feel his smile, his music
and I close my eyes, again, to watch my friend
play his guitar.

--------

30 Mar, 2003
for Kshitij, my friend and his guitar
Nod to the boss, Bruce Springsteen

A Poetry Class

I sit with someone; full of noises and steps
The class starts: an anonymous beginning.
I muse, "What is Relativity, what are FETs?"
Two minutes pass by, the instructor is seen entering.

Our instructor is a large man
with a comely face, and a graceful languor.
He is wearing a kurta, a fine gentleman
The eyes behind the glasses, ever brighter.

He clips the collar-mic; still I try to dethrone
the ascendancy of "choice".
He speaks, "Good Morning Everyone"
echoes a deep and soothing voice.

He puts up a slide on the projector -
I see (the white screen glowing gold) a poem, short,
called "When I heard the learn'd Astronomer"
writ by an American, Whitman Walt.

I read the piece of literature
And it sinks deep down into me.
Struck, what phrases, what structure !
I, wholly, forget Dirac and Fermi.

I find myself faraway
My teacher reads the poem aloud for me.
A muted sound comes from far away.
I, attentive at all times, let his oratory haunt me.

I wonder at the constructs, the metaphors,
"mystical moist night-air", "how soon unaccountable".
The meaning and them, to me, not matters,
But, the poet's poetry touch my soul, now fathomable.

The class comes to an end,
Time and Tide wait for none
But in my mind, Enchantment, Realization, happiness and beauty blend
The Poetry class will never be forgotten.

-----

10 Jan, 2003
Dedicated to lit/poetry Prof. Malshe