The Air-bender and the Dark Passenger

If the sensory self is isolated as incomprehensible from the apparent guarded self, the separation of the body occurs. There builds a deep chasm between our immediate instincts and the rationale. When we blame the outer world for the chaos which intervenes to separate us from our other half, it is not the cosmic elements that our verbal abuses are rocketing towards but this unfathomable personality alive in our own body choosing to raise some universally unanswered questions.

There is a concurrent war raging among the two worlds of rational and irrational. Here is the great bowl of chaos that we sometimes find ourselves lost in. The strife is not between Russia and America. This war is the fire burning between a self that perceives a world by experience and the other that travels through life by measures of trial and error. 

A separate half of the body proper lives under our skin. A half which witnesses life with the sharp senses of an animal. It bears far more advanced appliances of sensation and feeling than the molded carved personality which bears more inhibitions. The sensitive self is susceptible to danger much more than the body in shields. When we decide to leave this primitive half to fend for it's own, we openly leave it to be polluted by the dark matter of the bowl of chaos that comes after the separation.

This is how the divide of the body is created, a binary in one entity : the Ying and the Yang. At this stage the two elements falter to conjure the idea of a body balance. So it leaves the Ying as unstable as the Yang.

With the emergence of a chasm there is a recurrent war between the choice of answered questions and the unanswered. Swords strike swords, bodies take out blood. The war of choice creates the bowl of chaos.With each battle, the body further separates into two. The blame of the wounded is left on an outer world, a cosmic reason, a celestial intervention. 

To make the two halves meet, to unite separated exasperated souls of one body we have to begin by believing in the power of belief. A self which creates inhibitions can build a shell of invincibility: a cloak that deflects all shooting arrows of divisibility. A self bearing advanced sensory receptors sculpt exceptional choices in critical situations like a wary animal : sharpest blade to slice through adversities.

If the dark passenger empowers the body to take what is of primal importance irrespective of what is at cost, its clear understanding with the air-bender helps the latter build a protective armor to transcend above the thorns and create a new world : an orb filled with the strings of time, every minute lived fully. 

The arrival of belief gives birth to the vessel of balance that holds the Ying and the Yang. The opposites shake hands. A strong foundation holds an indomitable power to live and thrive.

 This is how courage enters a body - a body of binaries. 

                                        __________________

Echoes from Mountains

In the heart of the loudest sound sleeps the miracle worker. He brings you light, warmth from the darkest corners of the wilderness. Your friend, my friend, this harbinger of happy days sits in all the shadows that follow us.

The sol looks up from the clouds to greet this winged stranger, and thus our sun comes up radiating with light. We open our windows to a new morning, a light lifting our drowsy cells to a sudden moment of clarity. 

Bruised bodies and bleeding skin raise their heads to the sky. Two beings in their parallel realities wake up, chest heaving - searching for a lost companion. 

He watches you, this messenger from the mountains. He watches while you smile remembering a happy memory, he watches you cry yourself to sleep. He also pulls the quilt up to your face, shields your trembling body from the bitter cold wind. 

Our work takes up most of the hours in a day. This is how we choose to keep ourselves from weariness and chaos. And yet, they slip through the little gaps in the walls. They fly in with a gust and trespasses into our solace.

While our wounded bodies reach out to the rain, the wind, the grey clouds and a ray of sunlight...slowly walks in the shadow worker. 

He bears an infinite vessel of absorption and soaks in the abyss of smoke we sometimes find ourselves lost in. Our friend also brings with him the songs of the mountains, the sound of power and transcendence.

                          

The mountain king does not walk alone. Before dusk descends, he wraps close his bundle of belongings and waits against a tall street lamp. The dimming light slowly increases its flow with the arrival of a perfume. It tickles his nose, plays with his senses.

The shadow under the light flickers as a winged fairy silently walks close to his face. 

He watches her watching him. She is his source of power, the fire to his sun, the hurricane to his drizzle.

Not a word uttered yet all spoken, our winged friends embrace.

An open joy glides down with a smile to the sad-eyed sleeping children of men. 

Their silent laughter bounce off the atmosphere as soundless echoes from the mountains.

Through birch trees and firs, they fly and the moonlight plays with their wings. 

When the curtains are drawn and the beds are made, when the last cup of hot coffee is drunk and the tapes echo the final chords of Schubert or Bach, our subtle visitors arrive with words of comfort in a lover's whispers, a mother's caresses, a friend's laughter and even sometimes as silent solitude of calm. 

This is the voice of the mountain. 

                                     

~ fin ~

SUBSCENE

           

        

                     

                                             Pitter-patter glistens matter,

                                           Slowly slithers this gentle hopper.

                                 Sound in shivers of silver sprinklers;

                                Shattering lights exploding water-glass.

                                  Quiet bodies in quiet places,

                                     Variant coordinates of existence.

                              Between north and south breathing uneven,

                                    A drizzle whispers to a hurricane:

                  Yesterday a nameless man walked with a nameless woman

                           Covering known tracks in phantom company.

                                     Today time runs invisible,

                                     Belief, you painted yourself human.

                                            ________

On Coarse Gravel

                                                       

     Pain with pain kills.

   Moon where oceans swim –

Juggernauts and monsters prowling graceless!

   Rage where wind screams -

Tormenting tempests twisting vortexes.

    Sun where all suns sink;

Colliding light crashing onto your body.

                                       

                                                       __________________________

In Everyday I Find A Significance

In everyday I find a significance. I learn to love the little insignificances.

The emergence of the ice cream parlor from the corner of this road. I have learned to love the loud jingling sound of the bell of his cart.

Impatience consoled to a prolonged calm when the bus to home arrives late under the broiling sun.

Glimmer of tiny ripples on the lake I love,

Rain rushing into its still surface like a thousand bolting arrows.

I see now, the faces in the tube to work, awkward limbs walking in and out. I imagine us sharing a laugh.

I observe how the view beside my window confuses into a blur and rushes opposite to the direction we move.

Sitting at one place I focus on a tree, a house.

The sight of home gives me a burst of energy. I realize I have more to do here than outside.

I noticed how the tender flesh of a well cooked fish craves for the juice of a lemon. End up sprinkling lemon zest in all other dishes.

These days I write more often. They say there is more life to it now than before.

Do you like sandalwood? I think you smell of sandalwood or quiet near to that.

Sleep kisses these eyes unaware. The body gives in, hunched up in the chair.

The earphones still plugged in, the music passing into a dream.

I hope to breathe life in you from time to time.

  

Remember The Day We First Met

I had once slipped my feet into a pair of footprint that I found when I stopped to look at the sea. It was moist but mildly warm. I could still sense the curves of the feet, the space in between the toes which once stood right where I was standing - a subtle gradient between the vigorous waves and the burning sand. While each ray of light began to dim around me every single cell in my body screamed for company. I wanted to share these extraordinary, ordinary few minutes with someone.

One day a column of air blew into my flimsy shirt and my fingers found them entangled with yours. 

The touch of your skin so familiar...yet completely new to me.

The sphere of the sky moved in circles taking us with it into the infinite layers of the cosmos. We were looking for stars that never cease to shine. But the constellations were not on that dark surface, we found them in us.

The smile, I remember. The first thing I remember when I remember you.

I Want You to Remember a Sound

 I want you to remember a sound, 

 thunderous explosions against the bodies of mountains, 

sheets of ice cracking and sliding off in violent showers, 

enveloping life below in its whiteness.  

 I want you to remember a sound,

 the undoing of the zip of your tent, 

the first ray of light burning your eyes, 

the dawn chorus bringing new blood in your skin.

I want you to remember a sound,

 the sunset calling the sea waves,                                    their musical bubbling, 

their rise, 

their fall, 

their folding and unfolding,

and foam touching your feet.

                                                                                         I want you to remember a sound, the crackle of gravel under your heel.

                                             

      I want you to remember a sound,

      water gurgling in your throat, 

      water sliding down your chin, 

      water moist along your collar 

      and cool on your warm skin.

While you are here I want you to remember the sound of your own voice, 

a sponge for voices of every life you encountered and did not encounter, 

every eye that followed you and did not follow you, 

every piece of music that touched you and did not touch you,

every mind that remembered you and did not remember you

and every heart you won and lost.

                                          ______________