Poetry

Pure Absence

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What would
the radiant
sound of
a Red-winged
Blackbird be,
without the
extraordinary
power of your ears?

What would
the pale,
sailing moon
look like
without your
astonishing eyes?

What would your love
even know
what to do
with itself,
without
the ache
you intuit
in inevitable loss?

And who is it
comes to life
in you again
and again,
and every time
as a new miracle,
on the other side
of grief?

And then
there is this:
if you had
not come
into this world
just as you are,
and just in the way
you came,
could anyone
anywhere
ever
have lived your life
in your stead?

And then the question
toward the end
that might be
no end at all,

is there anything
or anyone
you meet
after death
you will
recognize?

No easy answer
to the
really, really beautiful
questions
of life,

they are just
the everyday
hidden invitations
that have always been
made to you,
something beckoning
you to understand
through every day
of your living
and your dying,

no possible
resolution
you could
ever make sense of,
except
to begin every
question
in wonder.

As Meister Eckhart was
at some pains to tell us.

What you seek,
is nowhere to be found
by answering
questions.

God’s full presence
felt
only in the absolute
essence
of absence.                          
                              - David Whyte

PS: Happy to me! Birthday. David Whyte’s words are a gift.

A Blessing.

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Someone shows you the mirror without knowing he’s doing it

God knows now and then you need to look into it

Who holds you as if our very existence depended on it

Who is willing to lose the world as if all that mattered was you

Who arrives from another town in the wee hours of the morning, lighting you up

Whose voice and touch form the rhythms of your life as you listen with your eyes closed

Who sings with you believing he can’t sing not knowing he’s doing a sterling job

Who anticipates the little things you worry about like the eggs running out

Who reminds you to take your meds in time

Who steps on an unknown path with you without a doubt that everything will be fine

Who gives his breath to your voice so you can be heard far and wide

Who sees all your brave attempts at hiding the things that hurt

Who says thank you to the green mint before picking a few leaves from it

Who chooses to walk beside you as if regardless of terrain life was a long walk

Who holds your hands in his knowing the precious gems of another love inside your fist

Who knows these gems bring sparkling tears and you will never let them go

Who loves you back as if you were the only woman in the world

As if love was the only substance the world was made of

Some say God gives with one hand and takes away with another.

I see Her giving with both hands open, leaning into me

A shadow and a friend.

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One little girl arrived with bare feet on the site. May be six years old. Tiny. The odd one, out of place. Unflinchingly prancing about on the dry prickly ground, then sitting quietly, watching her dad clear the tall brown grass with his strimmer. Not a word from her. No toys. No books. No company. No food. Simply watching men working with their tractors and JCBs and one woman watching the men do their thing. Six egrets curiously dancing about the Hitachi and whatever else.

I wondered what her bright little eyes picked up on. I wondered what went on in her little head. What did she think about? School? Mum and Dad? Brothers? Friends? TV last night? Did her family have a TV? Who decided what to watch? What did she have for dinner last night? Where were her slippers? Her father said she forget to wear them as they left home in a hurry. Was that the real reason?

I wanted to talk to her and listen to her but wasn’t sure if that would be okay. As I walked past her I smiled lightly and waved my right hand at her. She gauged me as she turned her head to look in my direction. I continued waving my hand as she considered her response. After eight waves from me, she finally waved back once and I think I detected a hint of a smile.

For today, that was enough.

An excerpt from the poem ‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye:

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

PS: The building of a home for CORe has begun. http://www.core-community.com

(Ref: https://poets.org/poem/kindness)

Ode to London.

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“I wouldn’t choose to live here. It’s good for a visit. A change.”

As a tourist in London, that was my opinion in 2005. Less than a year later a job offer I couldn’t turn down meant we moved to London with our bags and belongings. The move from the capital of Northern Ireland to the capital of England was a huge culture shock. The sights and sounds of Belfast, a place we had come to feel at home in, were peaceful and serene compared to the chaotic juddering of London.

We relocated, rented for a year before buying. Our home was five miles south of London Bridge and we lived there for 17 years. Saagar lived there for eight, two of which he spent at Uni. We got past our initial anxieties about the cost of living etc. and came to love the buzz, the cultural richness and the stimulating challenges of living in this crazy noisy place.

For the past couple of years, we have wanted to live simply. Last year we returned to India for a few months to winter here in response to the extra attention our respective bones and bodies were demanding from us. We made a home in rural Goa, albeit temporary. Yes. This is serene and peaceful. Yes. Time is plentiful here and the tropical languor is endearing. Yes. The Arabian sea is warm and its breeze soothing. I am utterly grateful for all of that but we find it’s not simple to create simplicity. This place is lovely but it is entirely non-London and I dearly miss that home five miles south of the centre. I miss our cat, our plants, our neighbours (some). I miss my girl-friends and work-colleagues, posh cafés and French restaurants, a quiet walk through West Norwood Cemetery and a stopover at the Tate while along the Thames, a routine, a purpose. I never thought I’d say this but sometimes I even miss people watching on my morning commute to work. I miss being around folks who knew Saagar and spoke of him, people who loved him. 

A friend, Dr Michael Duncan who is a Consultant colleague and a poet, shares the same love of this city in his recent poem.

A Masterpiece of a City

You don’t need an Acropolis
To be the foremost Metropolis
I would need a paragraph
To just describe the Cenotaph
It’s prominent and sleek
And take a look in
To the Arches of Marble
Or the Marbles of Elgin
Pleasing, unless you are Greek
And while that is a pity
It’s still a masterpiece of a City

A mystery of a city
The extremes of iniquity
But the best of the humanities
All Side by side
Diversity is most alive
Within the M25
From Harrow to Bexley
In this Masterpiece of a City

London imperturbe,
Caressing the Thames
And the bends that it lends
I searched the world
And found the world here
My Sentiments for Ealing
Are Morden a feeling
The Thames is greater than the Liffey
A masterpiece of a city

Parakeets, they were transplanted
And brilliantly adapted
And The foxes of Camden
Though residents might damn them
And The foxes of Tooting
Raiding and looting
It’s mammalian diversity
In this masterpiece of a City

And if you should seek something greater
Then enter the chambers
Of the Western Minster
Ministering and dithering
Perfecting their duplicity
Are the master debaters

A masterpiece of a city
It has no Ulysses written about it
But if you take a Peyp
There is potential for one
Thy will be done
The masterpiece, is London.

The wrath of the years.

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Do I really care?

What do people think of me? Of us?

Which landmass do I live on?

What is the weather like?

What colour is the bloody sky?

Whose child left for University?

How much money I have left?

Who is coming from where? Who is going somewhere on a holiday?

What’s for dinner tonight? Or any night.

Will I ever have a job to go to?

When will the Amazon-man deliver the stuff I ordered?

Is there any milk in the fridge?

What happens next?

The sun came up from the North-west this morning?

Do I care?

One whole decade in the world ‘after’ Saagar will be completed in the tenth month of this sort-of-new-year. Since the 1st of Jan, every time I read or write 2024, that is the singular thought that comes to mind like an unwelcome guest. How can the world tolerate this? Who authorised for all those days and months to pass? How can this even be allowed to happen? How can I still be here? Who granted permission for this kind of treachery? Is this gorge of yearning bound by any boundaries? Or is it bottomless, without any limits?

Does anybody care?