Maybe

One day when the roads will lie empty in the darkness of a familiar night,

you will feel that it might have been another day, another time,

a time that has already gone by,

as if eternity deceived you with a second chance...

one day when you will see the streets washed by rain-

or the silence around a streetlight's sepia halo

fuzzy like the ghost of a warm-blanket memory,

something will flicker in the shadows of your being:

maybe a footfall in the hallways of a secret inner chamber

maybe you will remember how you were as a child

and feel the same joys and the excitement of a new adventure.

maybe in the rut of adulthood and the life for wages

you will remember a moment of spontaneity.

and maybe the things that brought you to the place

you are now will reveal themselves and maybe you will find

that you have not traveled as far as you would have hoped

or maybe what you left behind- you did not leave behind at all.

And maybe when you think about a day, a moment, a wish

and who you used to be, maybe you will see that

the little space between who you were and who you are

was me.

So this is how it is

The summer haze diffuses through the window,

The lonely cock crows noon again,

I grope for my glasses, put them on and find

Another photochromatic day-

So this is how it is.

You're sitting on a cloud, you say you're unmoored,

I am on the ground while you evaporate.

From where I stand, if you were rock

And I was paper, you'd cut through me for air.

You scuttled my paperboat with your philosophy,

It floated for a while and sank,

But these still waters run rather deep

And the journey to the bottom was real.

So this is how it is.

The last thing I remember-

I had a map and no destination,

The colourful houses, trees and the tar

Looked like the ones I had left behind

Each street corner, face and bougainvillea

Whizzed by stroboscopically

That's when I realised- the new was more of old

And the old was, well, just older.

So this is how it is.

Demain

Demain dès l’aube dans le jour blâfard,

Je partirai à ne jamais revenir,

Je poursuivrai l’horizon qui dépasse le regard

Là, quelquepart au delà des souvenirs.

J’irai écouter le murmur des eaux,

Seule, sur les bords de la béatitude

Là, dans le silence ignorant des mots,

Je demeurerai un instant en solitude.

Et quand le vent bohémien des vastes prairies,

Sifflerait cet air des choses lointaines

Je volerai sur les ailes d’une pensée chérie

Pour frôler les herbes hautes des plaines.

Puis la lumière s’effacerait du monde,

Le crépuscule y viendrait, il ferait soir

Je partirai dans mon voilier sur la mer et ses ondes

Pour cueillir les étoiles du noir.

Mais la nuit berçerait mon âme rebel,

Lasse, heureuse, doucement je pleurerai…

Dans mon coeur encore cette voix, cet appel

Et devant mes yeux, une ombre de l’éternité…

The Temple Of Samara

The temple in the valley of Samāra

Is more than a home to me-

I have borne its myths and histories

In the furrowed wrinkles of my brow,

In the folds of my widow’s garb

I have treasured the dust of another time,

For I am old, old like the wind 

That never dies even with ebbing.

Beside my begging bowl,

Where shadows crumple against the wall 

I think about the years- ah! So many years

Behind me.

In the silence of the sanctum sanctorum,

The evening lamps begin to flicker

I see your form in the green darkness

Your shriveled body and your vacant eyes.

Ah my child, my poor cursed child!

My daughter, my bane!

Panting I bore you in my arms

I shook you and coaxed and whispered

And beat my breast, but you never cried

Nor opened your eyes-

My blood in you was cold.

At dawn they wake the sleeping mendicants:

Bangles, fragrance and a feminine haste-

The rush of veils and whispers,

Hennaed hands and silver anklets

That fill my white head with colourful thoughts.

"Old Hag!" the wives grimace and shudder,

Profaned by the sepulchral stench

Of age and exiguity.

With her kohl-rimmed eyes and vermillion,

The new wife is the last to arrive,

Her walk is slow and she falters

Under the weight of her swollen belly.

Gently she stoops to drop a coin

In the hollow of my coconut shell

And as she climbs the temple steps

The others look fondly upon her.

One by one they reach for the bell

And strike its tongue in a loud clear sound.

With gold thalis decked with flowers,

They sing for their Lord in unison.

I wrapped you in velvet and silk,

Soft and limp like your own body-

Cursed child who left me barren!

I buried you with my own hands!

Here in this corner where shadows sleep,

Squatting among the mendicants,

I see you glide like wisps of smoke,

And curl around the temple bell.

The night outside is soft and starry,

And this is my home and my grave-

Beggared of all, all that is dear,

Let me rock you in my arms, my child,

And sing about the years- ah! So many years

Behind me.

---

Faustus

Je l’ai perdue dans les ténèbres d’une nuit sans sommeil

Dans un rêve doré qui était au mirage pareil

Dans le silence gelé qui chuchote dans un cimetière

Dans la froideur d’une rancune des mots amers

Parmi les cendres et la poussière d’un monde noirci

Pesant sur ma conscience comme un fardeau alourdi

Dans une volute soudaine d’une bougie étouffée

Dans le débris d’un champ de bataille déserté

Entre les haleines glacées d’une haine intense

Dans une tempête de rage, sans but, ni sens

A la bifurcation du chemin de la vie

Dans un instant sceptique et de désespoir dans l’esprit

Au fond d’un abîme dans le royaume des ombres

Dans un labyrinthe sinueux d’un enfer sombre

Je l’ai perdue à un petit moment de sourire…

J’ai perdue mon âme à la recherche d’un désir.

Something..

Something about your eyes reminds me

Of dim candlelight that leaps in flecks

in the white silence of a church,

the sad quiet air that settles in the calm of twilit streets,

the kind hands of my grandmother withdrawn  

in the recesses of her lap.

Now the shadows come out in bouquets,

monochrome flowers in a monochrome memory...

Like wisps of a dream edging on the verge of reality,

Dark, unknown, patient, groping for existence

like unborn children.

Something about your eyes

Brings to mind that waking state between

language and cognition,

where words hinge not on concepts

but flashes, images, colours and life

that is lived in the mind..

something about your eyes,

lives independently of you

like a dream half dreamt

that leaps and takes flight

from the boughs of your mind.

Bare Feet and the Echo

A chewing cow ambled along the dusty road
A bell tinkling at its neck..
Its tail leisurely whipped the air-
the flies no longer followed.

The girl walked beside the cow,
she was barely eight years old-
she hummed a village song i did not know
Probably her mother has sung it for her
and her grandmother before that.
Or maybe they sang it in the fields
or whispered it to the grasses they cut
or to the ripples that formed in the pale
as they drew water from the wells..

The song that was sung
through a million generations,
the song that would survive them all
A tune that harboured each inflexion
of voice, of pain and celebration..

The cow mooed, the bell tinkled fainter.
The dust that arose between the sight and the vision
had no memory of footsteps..
Time would level it again- untrod .
Bare feet and the echo of an echo.