Shadows of Life

The life's amber glows...

The promise





In an early winter morning

By the riverside

The orange streak in the sky

Made my eyes open wide


The puffs of smoke rising high

The vibrating sound of the chime

Created the magic and the wonder

I saw the Sun rising for the first time


The steamer floated on the Ganges

Promising of a journey very sweet

The breeze stroked my tender face

And the water touched my feet


हमराज़



Waiting at the lake





Nobody comes

To visit me.

I'm waiting at the lake

For many years now.


Those days,

Some shadows fell on it

Of floating clouds,

Of birds flying by;

The stars dazzled

The blue waters in which

The moon washed its face.


Not anymore

The lake reflects my soul.

Nor any gaze

Of the known

Or the strangers

Draws the waves

On which

Once sailed the ships

Of beautiful tales.


Only the noise

Of dead leaves falling,

Only the thud on the ice

Do I hear for miles and miles.


What has frozen the lake?

What has turned

My eyes into stone?

Why don't I see

The faces anymore?


Nobody visits me.

I'm waiting at the lake, all alone.


हमराज़



waking up by the campfire





Could hear the lions

Roaring in the night

When the guitar played

By the campfire


It was a quick night

In the mountains

Never knew

It was not forever


All the stars

Seem to have gone now

Only a few, feeble ones

Struggling to stay

In the piccaninnie dawn


Waiting for the coffee

To boil on the ashes

Of the spent fire

Once raging wild


Where to next?

Ask the waves, beating

Against the boat

Tied to a pile of dead logs


Have tied my boots

Over wet socks

For how long

Will the hangover last?


To which continent

Goes the downstream?

I'm almost ready to travel

Through the day

And meet the stars again


हमराज़



brinjals in the afternoon





I


So many of them

Were around the cart,

When men gathered at the mosque

To pray in the afternoon,

That my eyes struggled in the crowd

To find and set her apart


She picked-up fresh brinjals

One-after-one,

Like the moments picked

From the fleeting time,

As I stood in the shade

Away from the scorching Sun


II


So much distance traveled by

The stubborn mind,

So much seeking on the streets

Filled with hope and dust,

What did we gather on the way?

What did we leave behind?


In the garden now

Silently falls the night,

As we read the story of Nile

That we wrote long ago,

The heart still glitters a while

As sparkles the yonder light


हमराज़



“Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”

― Omar Khayyam, رباعيات خيام





Returning from the Fair



I'm returning from the fair

And have taken a path

That goes away from the town

I'm carrying a photo-frame in my hand

And I'm wearing a brittle crown





I'm walking with small, uncertain steps

Under the receding shadows

Of old trees of pine

Falling delicately on a milder sunshine


I'm thinking how much did I pay

For the rides and the things I bought

Did I spend wisely? What else I could have got?


Have they missed me? What will they recall?

How will it look like, the memory on the wall?


Will I meet someone again, and where?


हमराज़



The Cab



life is on hire





I've been travelling for an hour

Along the curvy roads, up the hill

In a yellow cab

Finding its way through the mist

Which was spreading far-and-wide


A stranger

Driving on the unknown paths

Both oblivious of each other

I, lost in my thoughts, thinking of a dream

From the last night; and he

Knowing not where I had to go


And then, in the distance, at the turn

I for sure saw an apparition white

Standing under a luscious tree of pine

Bringing moments to life, the lady

Spreading smiles of happy sunshine


She sat beside me as I opened the door

She was quiet, soft and serene

I fell asleep as the motor slid on its trail

And I felt her presence

Long after she was seen no more


हमराज़



life's amber glows





On the bench in the park

Where two lovers

Parted their ways

Still falls the sunshine


On the corner of the street

Where the soldier

Glanced back for the last time

There's still a shop of wine


In the dark, thick forest

Where shadows are lost

The wind finds its ways

Through the trees of pine


The life's amber glows

In the dust of time

Where I belong to all

There's nothin' that's mine


हमराज़



In the Ruins



A poem dedicated to Syria and metaphors of emotions





I was waiting for you all the night

In the ruins of my old, lovely home

My heart sank with the flashing light

That filled the sky in the starry dome

Where were you father all this while

Why did you leave me all alone

Will you lift me again with a smile

Or let me die in dust and stone

There's no fire that cooks the bread

There's no pot that keeps the water

It's not what I had read

Of life on this earth and thereafter

There's dead flesh and blood all around

They have killed the lamb, and the goat

I hear voices lying on the ground

Of people sailing far away in a boat


हमराज़



river and the fountain





It flowed within them

As it flowed over the rocks

Calming the matters of their hearts

Long and long, winding in the distance

The river on its way, bending in the mist of dawn


Two strangers, hand-in-hand

Walked below the mountains, on the shore

As they their life-journey began

Knowing not which way the waters will flow

To what trepidations their fates will be drawn


The romance of the unknown held them together

Like the straw hangs with the clay

The fears lingered back in the minds

Of the prince and the princess of love


As the morning wore a scarlet crown

And thirty years down the lane

The travelers are well-settled in life

There's hardly a matter they're not sure about

And in the shining evening light

They spend hours by the fountain in the town


हमराज़



touch me close





It tells me

What is in your mind

Your touch Is a language

With a perfect grammar


It tells me What you are seeking

It tells me

When you do not find


Your touch

Travels a distance

But takes us further apart

It violates my flesh

But leaves my soul, a virgin

It is a sensation of anxiety

Masquerading as love


I am not your fear

I am not your failures

I am not your revenge

No, I am not your greed


I am what you were made for

Do not touch me with anger

Find me with peace

Pass on to me your pain


I am a tender leaf

Touch me like the rain


हमराज़



The Monk and the Lamb





At this height,

The sky looks clean

And blue. The air

That fills the lungs

Is so pure and true.


The monk sits unmoved

At the cliff--desolate

And free from wrench--

Under an old tree

On a freshly-painted bench.


The lamb is on the other side,

Its paws clutching

The rugged stone; its heart

Huffing, as it struggles

To climb the mountain alone.


The lamb's fiery spirit burns.

The lamb wants the seeds.

Full of pity is the monk.

He takes a deep sigh as he

To his prayer house recedes


हमराज़.



An Ordinary River



No stairs go down to it

No temple adorns its shores

It's an ordinary river

That flows by a small village


No story about it

Descending from the heaven

Never turned into a woman

No miracle was ever bestowed on it


The ordinary river

Was never published in a book

No fleet of battleships

Made it famous in the folklore


The ordinary river

Lives in the sweat and the tears

It falls from the sky

To become dreams and despair


It's witness to untold stories

Of grit, love and suffering

Of the invisible time going by

Of the joy in the eye, the pain in the heart


The ordinary river

Does not even know that it flows

It calmly grows in the fields

And silently burns in a pyre


हमराज़.