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All writings are the original work of Saara Punjani (2007-2020) and are subject to copyright. Some images may also be subject to copyright.
a few short miles
fortunate are those
who find themselves in their place
and whose life flows gently around them
like a calm stream around a submerged rock
everything comes and goes
people come and go
and we, we stay just where we are
~
fortunate are those firmly rooted
whose life piles on like more topsoil
so that even a bitter wind changes nothing
~
when all is said and done
what matters may be how much we mattered
or else, how certain those remaining,
could feel that we have not truly left
~
the ties that come to bind us
together are Given and made
i get it, i finally get it
but maybe i got it too late
~
there’s nothing quite so wonderful as being alone
until alone is all that’s left
and we are left wondering how to catch
that train, that would have taken us on a known track
with known ones
and on which the only stops would have been
tenderness, love
and a little grief
for a few short miles,
before the end
leap
remember the days when we were
so shocked and awed that something good was happening to us
that we enjoyed the thrill of the moment,
like the swift hop onto a moving cable car on its way up the mountain
and we were just thankful to have landed on our feet
~
these days we feel the ground beneath our feet all the time
yet the fear that pervades us is as though we were miles up
without a safety net
~
why has it become so easy to disregard an upswing
without it stirring up delight and amazement?
why has it become so difficult to not fear an impending downswing,
as though we are forgetting that misfortune is anything but stochastic?
~
we need to remind ourselves that
this has all been good, built on good
and may every leap we make be just like that first one,
free, unencumbered and full of hope
empty
my windows are clean
and my threshold is bare
long-still feelings have been disturbed in the frantic dusting,
coming up in clouds
memories i didn’t even know i cherished
echo around the place
that is now just empty enough for me to notice them
~
it’s been a long time since i acknowledged
just how empty life has become
i don’t miss anything
but i do miss everything
~
it is so bright here
lights are being shone on places that i’ve never seen before
behind where the sofa was and such
there are no piles of soft accumulation left to provide comfort
against the incomprehensibility of reality, anymore
our lives are everything that happens to us in relation to other people
and a home is no refuge when there is nothing to seek refuge from except one’s own self
~
this place has been my home
and i know that i will never come back
the circumstances are a mask i have no choice but to wear
i do grieve for this place
but only because the part of me that lived here, is gone
~
i am leaving behind two homes
both have formed me
and neither ask for anything in return
except that i find the courage to look upon them now
in their emptiness
hooked
i’m hooked,
these needles have pulled
at my heartstrings and
started to weave the
threads together in
a tight basket pattern
that binds me strand by strand in itself
and tugs unyieldingly
if i get too far away
it’s love
and i don’t know how it happened
ab teri mohabbat laagi, mere Saheb
it took years for feelings to grow
and now it has become clear
where i am always being pulled
shukhran lillah wal hamdulillah
the centre (2019)
think, if someone were to be given
a softer heart,
one that was able to feel the soul
in everything
~
we came when called just enough times
that the abode before us consented to transform our lives
a place where love literally throbs,
the heart and soul of the structure that is the centre of our lives
all of us have become so much more and less than we were, here.
~
the centre has become my centre
and has captured the centre at the centre of me
it spills over its edges into the rest of my life and
makes the rest of my life part of itself too
i am pulled here unyieldingly
as though in the arms of a vortex spinning so fast i can’t even tell
where it begins and where i end
there is nothing i feel that doesn’t get resolved
once i’ve come back to my centre;
not a single worry that isn’t smoothed, a fear that isn’t untangled
once i’ve been here at my core
~
the people here are like the sound inside a seashell,
telling stories of separate drops flowing together to their ultimate end,
each one making an impression on my heart
~
this place makes me face those things about myself that i would rather ignore,
such as my obvious unworthiness
but of course, that is exactly why i’ve come
~
brother, you might do it better than me
and you might know something i don’t
but i won’t hold it against you
since you are here to show me what i could be,
not what i am not
and thank God, thank you, for giving us this place
to come to.
This poem, written shortly after the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Ismaili Centre Toronto, is meant to capture the deep meaning that spaces of community and worship can bring to our lives over time, as well as the newfound meaning we can obtain from the seemingly familiar by engaging on many different levels. This piece is a followup to the original “the centre (2014)”, available to read here.
Jamaat
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash.
the sun rose for the first time for us today
the moon showed its face over the trees
for the first time,
the only time necessary for us to understand that what we love
is the only thing that can be Loved,
the only thing that can possibly Be
~
We’ve gathered to bear witness to the origin of everything;
The place of peace, where everything has been vested
Not yet manifest, but quite seemingly on the verge
~
maybe if we all sit together
on our humble knees
we might fit together like an intricate mosaic
displaying all of the colours that make up
the world in all its beauty
and maybe, You could do us the immense favour
of gazing here
~
Every country is your country
Every seat, is your seat
Every banda is your banda
Whether he knows it or not
~
we might be far from you but we want to be closer
and if you allow us, we will come together
and in coming together, feel your presence through each other, near and far
~
Every place is in congregation
Every one of us, your jamaat
human
Photo by Rory Björkman on Unsplash
~
O mankind !
Be careful of your duty to your Lord
Who created you from a single soul
and from it created its mate
and from them twain hath spread abroad
a multitude of men and women
Holy Qur’an 4:1
~
I don’t know who you are
nor do I need to know
but I do know what makes you alive,
what carries hope inside,
what hurts when there is pain,
what feels elation at the
sight of the beloved one.
~
Let us recognize each other,
not as the other
but as the mirror by which
we judge the degree to
which our own souls
can expect salvation.
~
When you cry, know that I do too,
if simply on the inside.
There is something undeniably natural
in coming together over what it means to
be human.
~
I don’t care for the past
or for memories gone,
but I do care for the
essence within me and within you,
which ultimately,
and most hopefully,
in all the deepest hope and truest dream
are going again to a shared plane,
where joys are evident, and love
is the air we breathe.
Intezaar
Photo by Tyler van der Hoeven on Unsplash.
~
We all, are all waiting
Holding on to our hearts, unable to fully breathe
~
Some of us run, shedding layers,
while others wrap ourselves in new meaning
Some of us dissolve,
while others come together forming an intricate crystal
Some of us steep,
Some of us weep,
Some of us cocoon
and some of us unfurl
None can sleep
Our pores open
And we all brighten
And lighten
And fade
As the sum of our somes
become One.
The place we last met
All a person wants is to be loved,
to be told that it will be difficult being apart from them.
That when push comes to shove, their presence matters most.
Life unfolds in the moments between being loved,
while waiting for the beloved to return to the place we last met.
~
Dearest,
do you know that I love you in every moment,
whether you are present with me there or not?
I would run unnecessary errands just to be with you,
give you my opinion on a great many things for which I do not care, simply to be in your conversation.
Your gratitude is welcome but what I really want is your hand, your uninterrupted gaze.
~
I would follow you to the end of your journey before undertaking my own,
for a few moments of love promised.
Are you coming to meet me soon?
Start over
Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/country-lane-field-meadow-puddles-1551/
Everything always comes to a head,
like gray clouds on a breezy summer afternoon.
They roll in suddenly, catching us unawares.
It rains
and there is relief
not for the ground, but for the tired sky.
There was a lot to hold on to
and now it has been let go.
Start over,
start again,
whatever that means to you.
life’s horse
I can’t say that I want to grab life by the horns.
I think I would rather watch it come together
with time like the soft creases of a baby’s smile.
I would rather lay life out like a sheet,
smoothing the wrinkles with my palms
and tugging here and there to make it fit.
I don’t care to iron first.
~
I want to watch a plastic beach ball rise and fall in the waves,
being carried here and there, appearing not to move
until some hours later when only a speck is visible in the distance.
I just want to see what will happen if I let go of the reins.
Do I believe that life’s horse will find its way home?
No artist
Have you ever wanted to feel differently without changing who you are?
~
I am no artist.
I take what is known and repurpose it,
I take what can be deduced and write long sentences explaining how to get there
I justify my existence because I am asked to
because that is the way the world works.
~
When I was caught up in it all, I saw a glimpse of the core of the core of a diamond
Where a single particle of light entered and became a wave, reflecting ever internally without end.
I stopped breathing, then
My eyes were open, but unnecessary
And I heard the music.
~
When I was tired I lay down and slept like there was nothing else
When fed, I lamented having eaten
When I was cold I longed for summer sun
When warm, I threw open my cloak to embrace harsh air
When I was rich I was no different than when I was poor
When I worked out of fear, I came so far
When I overcame fear, I stalled, thinking where to go next
The push from the outside, the crack of a whip has always been stronger than
This inner master
~
I can do anything, if asked
I can make anything, if told to
I can warm your heart talking to you for a few moments, in a place where we can feel,
under the stars with coffee in hand
I can help you but I can’t help me.
peace, peace, peace
There is something the matter with each of us.
Some of us weep in our homes, too “busy” to face our brethren.
Some of us are always on about the next best thing.
We may be neighbours but we resist becoming friends.
~
Where will you be, friend?
Where you will be at peace.
Where peace is friendly and friendship brings peace.
Peace, peace, peace.
Nothing else we ever asked for;
nothing else we ever knew.
It’s not that hard is it?
Peace must be somewhere, like a river or the sun;
Rising, now and again.
Why would we have to work so hard to get it,
and so hard to stay within it?
Once you get to a certain point,
it won’t be about what you do
but how you handle what’s done to you.
Peace, peace, peace.
the cloak
It’s as though I am looking for a book I once read,
a song I once heard; a person I once met.
It’s as though, I am listening, straining to hear what I want to be said.
I don’t know if there is a use in telling you
but I am looking for you.
Before, I only heard about people looking
and I used to think, it’s so simple – there you are.
Now it’s only as simple as coming to realize that some things about human life are universal
and that we have more to share than to keep.
Forgive me, if you have heard this before somewhere –
nothing I might tell you is new.
And still, I am looking, and wanting to know and wanting to understand,
and wanting to lose myself.
Because like for you, the knowledge of my self has come full circle,
once liberating, now a cloak I must wear or carry, getting in the way.
When I feel cold I want to escape into the feeling
because surely, there is something beyond feeling cold.
If you let yourself come to rest in mayhem
it is possible you will feel what lies beyond.
path
Thank you for giving me the chance
to be the kind of person that I would like to think I am.
~
For some time we’ve known that our path would be unlike some others.
At times, we would look outwardly un-alive,
while our counterparts pledged to make the most of their precious time,
far away, on other continents.
There is a difference, between patience and complacence;
between passivity, and compassion.
If the difference is not apparent, an explanation will not help you.
We are, here and now, living for a day we cannot see
but we know is there.
We too, have a destiny,
and ours is one we trust was chosen for us, long ago.
If our days are spent moving even a grain of uncertainty off the pile
then over time, surely we will find what is buried underneath.
If our days are spent walking a single step at a time,
then we trust the destination will meet us halfway.
It is inevitable that we will go somewhere from here
and that we will know where we have been, when we leave.
when it rains
we become lovers again when it rains,
huddled up against a common unpleasance
songs we know crackle over the radio
not because this is vintage
but because the FM transmitter is acting up
we are twenty-first century people;
we’ve spent the past few weeks accomplishing much with our thumbs
tonight is like the olden days,
when we felt these songs together for the first time
and let them soak up the space between us.
Navroz Mubarak (2015)
These days our eyes have opened to another sun,
quite further and beyond the one
that dapples everything with gold these evenings.
For the first time in our lives we yearn to cry,
navroz mubarak!
not for what has happened with us
but for what we hope will happen to you as well.
~
The day is here, and this time, springtime clichés are no longer.
Some seeds have grown up on their own into meaning.
How to describe this blessing?
Closing our eyes becomes the same as opening them;
this light continues beyond sight.
We are truly one this time, angelic in the abounding clarity
which at once we can see, and not see.
In our blessed gathering we are as light as we have ever been,
our true selves merging, one another with the rest.
~
Navroz (or Nowruz) is a festival celebrated around the world to commemorate the beginning of a new year and the first day of spring.
To learn more about Navroz, visit Wikipedia.org and/or TheIsmaili.org.
To read “navroz (2014)” on this blog, click here.
not one and the same
Oh, you’ve let me go,
says papery leaf, for a while miserable in the dampening mud.
Tree knows not the leaf
so tree discards the leaf;
they are not one and the same.
Leaf says,
Eventually I will return to you
in a way that you cannot refuse!
I will become you.
Leaf cries for the ground to take him in;
begs for the rain to dissolve him.
~
A story inspired during the autumn, but held back until an appropriate time.
Sometimes we don’t recognize ourselves in one another and it is difficult to appreciate our commonalities, what we share. Then again, we come from one source.
How can we adapt ourselves so that others will recognize us, and in so doing, embrace us as they would the known, the familiar?
to know ourselves
To know ourselves,
we sought out the most difficult paths
that we might gain something from walking them
climbed mountains, not to climb them,
but for a glimpse of the sparkling sky
travelled the world, not to see it,
but to meet the companion within.
~
This is not the world, but the whole of a mirror in front of me;
what a world, that was made simply for me!
In the whole world i have tried to see myself,
yet the whole world seems not enough.
Tell me, where should i seek that mirror,
the most beautiful of all
that mirror, which reflects me with such truth,
that i myself become it?
Tell me, who is that most familiar companion,
the one who can tell me
everything
about myself?
~
This first part of this piece emphasizes worldly obstacles and challenges as opportunities to increase self-knowledge.
The second part can be understood as alluding to Islamic understandings of the relationship between creation and the Creator.
on patience and potential
Said the lover to the beloved, who was consumed by fear of stagnating, of not fulfilling her potential, of wasting her precious time in life:
Look around you!
The apple could not have been picked sooner. The cocoon could not have opened earlier. But neither is sitting still, doing nothing. Both need time to grow.
You are the apple of my eye
and the butterfly of my heart.
I cannot wait until you feel for yourself the wings you are going to grow,
and see how beautiful you are.
~
At times, we may come to feel trapped within the paths we once chose, or that were chosen for us. We may come to feel that we are idly allowing the mystery, beauty and potential life offers, to pass us by.
This piece takes some words of wisdom that we have all been fortunate to receive at some point in our lives, and adapts them into a brief story.
shukhar
Some news begins to settle,
quietly,
in the places where disbelief has left its footprint
~
you’ve gone, but in leaving you’ve taken me
one, maybe two steps further along in this life
i think i understand why they say,
shukhar,
thanks
~
i knew you, once upon a time,
or at least,
i thought i knew you a little bit
and now,
but now,
i understand there is little that was what it seemed
~
it’s like a single thread unravelling from a sweater;
one minute, it’s fine, and the next, there’s a gaping hole
except that the hole i feel isn’t in me,
it’s in the fabric of life itself
and life is coursing through,
pulling me upwards in its path
one thing comes over and again to mind:
koi aapse agar kuch maange,
to usse dedo,
aakhir, yehi to hai zindagi
if someone asks you for something,
then give it,
after all, this. is. life.
this is life,
this is life,
the one time we can love, and breathe, and aspire
the one time we can rise above our human selves
to fulfil the hopes and desires of another being
the one time we can ourselves be
compassionate; merciful
~
what did i give you,
you, who suffered
unknown to me?
what did i shower on you then,
that i now deserve to pick like fruit
the truth of your hard-lived example?
~
someone suffered, deeply, quietly,
but we did not know his mind
someone struggled, beautifully,
and we are uplifted with admiration
that we thought we knew him, even for a day.
* * *
A childhood friend has passed away. This piece is a reflection on life, death, and everything in between. Shukhar (among other things) is often said upon a person’s death, by those who follow the Shia Imami Nizari Ismaili tariqa (interpretation) of Islam (and by others Muslims well).
presence / presentation
At times it becomes apparent to me,
that I occupy quite a lot of space.
I may start out of medium size,
with longish limbs and a short torso,
and a tendency to keep these wrapped up around each other.
But if you ask me to speak, to say, to perform,
then slowly, I begin to unfold,
one gesture at a time, into a circling kind of dance;
my range of movement evolving into one higher.
Slowly, I start to take up more space,
my limbs, stretching,
my hands, talking,
my posture, lengthening,
my eyes, brightening,
my voice, burgeoning.
I start to feel what I am saying,
I start to become those words.
I start to live these concepts I describe;
I see myself unfolding as a story told.
Tell me, when I unfold this way,
do you see me; do you feel my enhanced frame?
Does my size make you want to unfold too, to join me,
or do I make you want to shrink back into your space?
~
What kind of presence do you have, and how does that presence become enhanced when you are doing things you enjoy?
Do you ever feel that someone is “in your space”, or that you need more space in order to really be you?
Do you worry that your presence could unintentionally encroach on that of others, preventing them from fully expressing themselves?
white plains
the night sets in deeper as we trudge across these white plains
crisscrossed with patterns of tire tracks
i whisper a desperate prayer: keep my love safe, and warm
it is one thing in theory to imagine being without you;
quite another to make this trek on my own
a few flecks of snow cling to the tear streams on my cheeks
i clasp my hands together, keeping close the hope of seeing you again.
~
We may be only a few miles from our beloved, and our white plains may be only parking lots, but: the great love stories are happening here, with us, today. Never was there a better time to feel, to love, to miss; to be.
eulogy
when i think of her, i remember that:
my happiness, was her happiness
that she never wanted to stagnate,
but she tried not to control things too much
when inspiration came, she flowed with it,
and allowed it to flow into her
and when it didn’t appear,
she didn’t worry about chasing it
she tried her best to have faith in the little things,
and the big,
and to remember that her life,
was not the end.
~
How often do we think about how we want to be remembered once we are gone? What kind of people do we aspire to be, and who are we, when all is said and done? This is an unedited response to a “create your eulogy” exercise that I was fortunate enough to participate in, presented by a colleague and friend.
two poems: “Museum” and “courtyard, unedited”
Two poems: Museum and courtyard, unedited
These pieces were written while and after visiting the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada. The first, Museum, is a reflection on history, civilizations, art and interpretation. The second piece, courtyard, unedited, was penned while sitting in the Museum’s inner courtyard, and has intentionally been left unedited in order to maintain for the reader, the flow of inspiration as originally felt. It contains English as well as another Hindi-Urdu mixed language that sometimes spills onto the page. Please excuse my rough transliteration attempt as neither of these is my first language.
Museum
What will the people from days to come decide to make of us,
what will they preserve in their halls?
Those gone by have become to us what remains of them,
after all tribulation and epiphany fell away into dust.
They have become what we can still understand of them.
~
There is too much left to know about knowing; not enough left to see.
We fear we are penning lines already penned by those greater than us,
a people that truly saw the truth unfold.
Nothing can be said now that has not been said before;
our efforts, mere echoes of a greater, grander voice.
What inspired these carvers, and what were they trying to say –
can we be certain that we have preserved ourselves against misunderstanding?
Did they create these shapes because those are what they saw,
or were they too, seeking to lose themselves in detailed but repetitive abstraction?
Do these patterns transcend a name?
~ ~ ~
courtyard, unedited
is jahaan mein hum upna sub kuch kho sakte hain,
sub kuch seekh bhi saktehain
aisa husn ko bananekiliye, aisi roshni, is roshni, ki zaroorat hai
this light is something like the light of the heavens and the earth;
this light has an unnameable quality to it,
a way for all to see all
bathed in it my hand resting on the table becomes something from another world,
translucent, light diffusing outward in the place of rosy flesh
your eyes are from another time here, where patterns repeat themselves to liberate beyond eye’s capacity, where voices rise to a crescendo and we take in,
light,
light,
light, light light,
upon our hands, our face, and every
one is so beautiful here today
yahaan aake kuch bhi likhdijiye,
sub kuch shahiri banjayegi
yahaan aake kuch khaaneki zaroorat nahin mehsoos hoti,
in hawaaon, saa(n)son, is jahaan ka rooh hi kaafi hai
yahaan rehekar kuch chaate hai hum,
kuch khona bhi chaate hain
kuch cheez samaj na chaate hain hum,
kuch cheez humko yaad aatihai
kuch cheez hamaari thi, hamaari hai,
hamaare dil me se nikalke,
humhi ke aage jhoom uthi
keherahihai:
agar aapke dil mein koi baat phool ki tarha khilrahihain,
to usse khilne do;
mat sochiye
agar aapke ander koi baat hai, to aap dil ki zubaan se usse pehsh karo,
chaahe koi samje ya na samje
agar koi lafz kaafi nahin lagte,
to khudh ke lafaazon banaalo
khudh ki zubaan banaalo,
koi samje, ya na samje
~
A rough translation of courtyard, unedited:
in this place/world we can lose/forget everything of/about ourselves;
we can also learn everything
to make this kind of beauty, this type of light, this light, is needed
…
come here and write anything at all,
it will become poetry / anything written here becomes poetry
here, there is no need felt for eating,
these winds, breaths, the soul of this place/world is enough
staying/being here, we desire something;
also, something we wish to lose
some things we understand,
and some things, we remember
some things were ours, are ours;
some things come out from our own hearts
and have come alive/to dance in front of us
they say:
if something blossoms like a flower in your heart,
then allow it to blossom,
think not
if there is something in you that wants to be said, then use the language of your heart to convey it,
whether anyone understands or not
if no words seem enough,
then make up your own words
make up your own language,
whether anyone understands, or not
