Carnival of Night

The Carnival of Night

It was a carnival of light the whole night long
But a solitary moonbeam roamed alone
in a deep dark patch
in the midst of the coming and going of the stars.

The star of the night was shining all along
as she borrowed the moon's aura
and threw it all around.
The  Dame Night chose silence as her language

and her passive aggression
continued through the carnival -time,
though her words
made no sound.

But here the earth slumbered in peace
under her wide canopy.
lulled by her song
and dazzled by the stars..

Nothing stirs here ; all is quiet and still.
The fever of the frantic day
has taken its toll,
The silence of the night has redeemed all souls.

It's a small respite from the lures of success and failures
and their aftermath.
All is purity and  frozen silence.

The carnival is receding now ;
and one by one the stars will go,
and one dream detached
will bring on another dream to stretch.
Dreams that break, multiply and grow,
till by morning a whole  new city of dreams will glow.
It's time to wake up and call halt to the play of shadow.
It's the twilight-hour, neither dreaming nor waking,
The hour of distraction and delusion ,
sweet stupor and bitter aches.

The night is gone long ago,
With her Moon hiding in the fog.
Say farewell, say farewell.
The carnival is over
and we must move on to the light of the day.

Happy Unbirthday to Alice from Madhatters

An Unbirthday Song For Alice From Mad-hatters

I dragged all my belongings, useless clutter,
dumped all in the porch; put a lock ,
a giant one,
on the door,
even put a board up!
"To let, or on sale",
and left.
Couldn't resist the temptation to come back and see if there was a buyer.
After four days I came back to take a peek.
There was a huge bouquet plastered on the door and a note
"Happy Unbirthday to the dweller"

 Image : Courtesy Tanya Dimitrova
tanya dimitrova originally shared:

MY SERGEANT

MY SERGEANT

This night be it, my sergeant of fight,
the battles I have fought to win,
are now left far behind.
Drinking from the great heights
and looking down with marvel
at the thirsty vale,
writing words with a needle
upon the corner of eyes,
with nothing in the hand
to stitch back or mend.
My sergeant of the might,
be you tonight
the sergeant of light.
Flow ahead with a lucid delight,
let the remorse and regret wash away;
be you the carrier of undying ray of morning light.
My sergeant, be you tonight
the sergeant of a luminous shadow
emanating from the hidden source of thy undeclared light.
The light dazzles and blinds,
and how we know as we look behind
and count the number we have left on the way,
bare, unshod, bereft of a ray.
My sergeant of lonely deserts and raging sands,
let my dreams be the wishes of God
May you fly without an escort if it needs be,
but fly you must, my sergeant of the night.

Image Received Via +Mike Burns 

500px originally shared:

Faithful by Sarawut Intarob: https://goo.gl/ATWp3k #beautiful

with a needle upon the corner of eyes, with noth...

UNDERSTANDING

UNDERSTANDING
In a world, a cosmos
of a new understanding,
we were not under the powerful gaze
of strategic planning, overtures of capture,
sudden invasions of waiting opportunists,
of imperial domains where the first declaration
always ruled, with a prerogative
to make the minds and break them at will.

When my hand was held by a covenant, not a promise
and my existence suddenly woke up
to a new grace,
and I was softly told to make a distinction
between an affirmation and a declaration.

I, who was brought up to swallow declarations,
I, who in a marginalized world, never knew there was another world,
over and above hegemony,
was drawn in with no language to aid my understanding.

"It takes one to make one;
it takes one to undo one;
it takes one to break one";
that was the kind of philosophy,
pragmatic, with a fox-like cunning,
with the astute acumen
of strategic planning,
that i was required to imbibe,
an art of maneuvering, shape-shifting,
manipulating, circumscribing language
for the game of chess.

I was taken unaware when the affirmation came,
not as an intrepid, audacious announcement,
but a soft whisper that belonged nowhere
in the familiar geopolitics of relationships.
A transposition to another keynote,
I am still in a daze, because i cannot translate
this whisper into any language known.

There is still time to understand;
for the time being,
let me remain in a daze.

Once When I Looked Out Of The Window

Once when I looked out of the window
Neena Dighe     Translated by Sushama Karnik

The dark of the dusk swamped in
 as I opened the window to look at the sky.
The moon had just called in,
 perhaps a while ago.
But a lone wayward cloud
 had just made its way
 into the moon's white track.
with a pack of magic on its back.
In a moment its gossamer web would ensoul the moon
and next, the cloud would shiver
 in the bath of  the milk of paradise.

And here down below, right before my eyes
was the familiar solitary tree
touched by the gift of the lonely eminence
of the moon playing out its music to all.
Its rich leafy garb was no longer green;
its density had taken in the white-clad richness
of the shining arm of the night.

It was then that I saw this pair of parrots
making a delayed flight across the darkened sky.
Cutting a desperate path across the firmament,
they sent out a screeching call.
Probably a pair of souls
who had lost the track of home.

The Seeds Of All

The Seeds Of All

Nourish the beginnings;
let us nourish the beginnings.
The seeds of all things are blest.
The blight is what we bring.
The blessing is in the seed.

The love that gives ourselves back
is the love that seeps into the crack,
into the soul, and heals.
In that crack is the seed
of all that lay under a wrap,
the seed of all potentiality.

Love and compassion is the key
the energy we direct within,
first at our dormant needs, our wounded soul,
our scars that need to be healed;
healed from the roots, not denied and deceived
into being what we are not: the carriers of someone else's deeds.

Go into the silence.
It speaks.

It is the transcendent place,
not a place of of rapacity and
empty gestures
that hide nothing
except the need to end it all.

A transcendent place
a place ignored completely,
and yet banned by any predictable force;
it's a home to the unrest of the soul
cleansed of the taints begot of the duress.
Those who manage to remember all this while
the address and the location of that place in the crowd,
for them a home that opens without a key.

Image Credit : Tanya Dimitrova

One old bench in the park and one fragile flower

The Silence Within

SILENCE WITHIN
The quest of life, this quest of mine,
the realms we searched,
perhaps in vain,
the cosmic silence took us on the wings
to those worlds where
even the sun could not keep his fire burning.
Such silences that led us on
and left us breathless,
the silence of the end of all endings.
The silence of the sun, the silence of the sea,
the silence of the mind that neither imagines
nor affirms...
the silence after the delusion ends and the wonder begins,
the silence before the ascent begins and the silence after it ends,
Silence : when was it volitional
and when was it not a visitation of a voice within?