Loneliness

If writing verses of a song can help 

Memorize prime numbers and build 

Memory, all my failings will fade

Away, I will be grateful for the new

Developments like learning how to elope

And reverse expenses. I, myself, 

Will be smiling, stand at the center of the stage

Start a play though will not make me richer, will make

Me less poorer. Is it an improvement to end

The year? Or is it a certain type of beauty,

A beauty of a moment that suddenly disappear?

Enduring moment is enduring the present bringing

Enough strength to move the wheels of hope.

It’s awful to feel lonely.

The First And Last Question

Reading an old newspapper is not useless

It’s like waiting for a train

You may see something strange 

Or someone extraordinary  

You may want to know more 

To understand and comprehend

Like going to a desert to escape the city

And sleep under the stars, take

Photographs of the constellations,

Of the revolving sky where existence is all written

Waiting for a train is like a promise

The patience of thought for surprising 

Consequences, allowing the mind

To wander or focus,time,proximity

Of time,simultaneity of waiting grinds 

Slowly, my attention, constant and stubborn

Devotes  all time to you.

The simplicity that love can enter

One’s heart at first sight.

Will I sacrifice myself for love?

Reflection

Before the year ends 

An expanse of a year or years

You will look back and reflect, a self chitchat:

How far did you go in the four quadrants?

Encounters of your body, mind, heart, and soul.

You want to look 

For signs of transformation or coherence

Habits and struggle to interpret health

Or commitment to deliberate practice and growth, 

How far did you walk, how long did you dance? 

Meeting with spiritual teachers did you learn 

Mindfulness, contemplate the ultimate reality,

Soul’s journey to what is, the presence

Approach to your emotions, painting the colors

Where will your heart turn, what will your heart embrace?

The unfolding, reversal of thought

Tossing ideas, catch and throw and catch again

Doubt may envelope your desires

Arrangement of imagination, how to start and proceed

The choices are several, relevance and pretenses

Being careful of pleasures and enhancers

Without ruminating to death or nonsense

You accept the invitation to open a book

You memorize the wrappings before you unfold

You may have to put the origami pages together again

Before they mutate to different personalities

Pages stained with peanut butter and blueberry jam

As if reminiscing over breakfast

A calming sound of pages turning,

Your voice from reading the text

You are thinking absurd and elegant 

Riddles to spark creativity.

Somewhere, sometime

You confront the question:

Is life’s greatness and simplicity measured

By how far or how near you offer

Your heart for goring, to the bull’s horns?

The morning before to envision a new world

You have to plan for New Year’s Eve

But pause for a moment, even for a briefest moment

“Hold the moment in your awareness, 

A moment of mindfulness,” of gratitude.

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills—

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

-Czeslaw Milosz

note: A poem by Czeslaw Milosz quoted by Parker J. Palmer in his book On the Brink of Everything, the book I’m currently reading.

Wordless Saturday

Red sidewalk

The first

A sudden flash, then

thunder 

disturbing team of horses a far distance from the window

a boy  chalk-drawing on the sidewalk looks up at the sky

a rat rattles the cage and escapes

the woman pauses pouring tea on her cup

the liquid seems frozen in space

a baby wakes 

the first rain since Saturday.

Escapes

Magical addiction to good clear grammar

Loads of small moments come after escaping the cannibals

Not a caravan of giant ants devouring fallen logs

Or a tribe of jellyfish, the stinging wiggly umbrellas, 

The sensations of dread are so heavy they cry in their sleep

Gnawing on their limbs and heads

Soon elementary syntax, context, structure of verb and noun

Short and long lines, prose and poetry boil inside the cauldron

Overflow on the floor, out the door, on to the streets

They surrender themselves, surrendering to elements of surprise.

Silence

Time seems too fast

Invisible sobbing

the clouds crying to the sun

But too early for snowflakes

After many days pass they run away

Sliding in snow covered meadow

To a frozen stream

What should they do next?

They may start sharpening the knives

They will need them in carving the ham

On Christmas dinner. They are on their 

Own. Holidays can be exhausting.

There will be time for being alone

And relaxation on a beach somewhere

But their relationship goes too fast

Autumn then winter then summer

They hardly remember spring

Or too tired to remember

But they are very fond of life

From simple dinners with discussion 

About the disappearance of post-modernism 

Or its reemergence. Or simply talking 

About dragons and fairy tales. They have 

No time to grow old.