There couldn’t be
a better backdrop for change
than one which inexorably turns gold,
red,
and fades away.
Change is good and
change is hard.
Change
is
inevitable.
It is the hardest thing to see ourselves
bare
when the leaves fall away,
and we are left to assess our own growth,
all our knots
and all our bark, peeling.
It is the hardest thing
to acknowledge our own vulnerability.
Will we still be here come spring?
Or will we simply learn
to see the forest
for the trees.
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?
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.
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:
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?
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.
© Saara Punjani 2013.
each time we turned
to rise above this illusion of the finite,
we were met with a ceiling – not yet, not yet
we made steady ablutions
and we kept a hopeful heart
and still, we were not crowned to go on
~
a kite without a string
would be blown every which way on the ground;
a kite with a string
rises high in finite direction
yet, without the string
we could not have come
as far as we already have
how far must we rise before the string can be cut;
before we are unbound from the direction of our path?
how far must we rise before we are taken into the skies,
mere specks, dissolving further all the time?
~
on this day, listen, to the quiet,
as clearly, some things are being said
whether we move,
upward,
inward,
outward or forward,
we cannot begin to say
the tides pull us away,
that we forget you;
the tides push us so far
that we fall right in
here we have always been, unmoving in the movement,
immersed in the truth of your most impressive signs
let us dig deeper, look farther, stay awake longer;
let us continue searching for you
let us be so obviously engrossed,
mere specks, dissolving further all the time
© Asif Virani, 2014.
the crispness of this season
asks to know both who we were
and who we are
~
the maple, the oak, watch over themselves with silent grace
as the leaves they laboured to produce,
and that kept them alive,
dry out and fall steadily away
what remains of our victories and defeats,
of our convictions and our epiphanies?
we have been able to keep nothing
material from our endeavours
who can say whether we leave the past
or if it leaves us;
whether we ourselves walked paths
or if they grew up beneath our feet?
we have had nothing
and nothing has been ours
and yet, we are not who we remember.
we love only that which is our own
a man, with his wife and son:
who do you think he truly loves?
~
it rains and rains
you approach, drenched and desolate,
a shelter for me, if only i would accept you
~
i wish we could say,
we are always happy with what we know about ourselves
i wish we could say,
we come with noble intention,
that we have been saving our last loaf
for the hunger of another
i wish we could say
we fall to our knees and kiss the ground,
thankful each day
for the fact that we can feel
~
sometimes when it rains
a gray runs down our face too
and sometimes,
we wish we could deny that we enjoy it
else, why would we drink the drink of self,
that warming wine of separation?
why would we continue being what we are?
~
we are, men in all of our abasement;
men, in all of our greatness
we bend lower
so that others might be jealous of our righteousness
we paint peace on our face
that they might admire our beauty as we pray
~
when everything is gray
go ask for it to be better
for someone else;
what you would have happen to you,
have it happen to someone else
oh dearest, you’ve never really been
hungry; never really been sad
you’ve never really needed anything you didn’t already have
come, smooth over the wrinkles on someone else’s face
make them yours,
and love them too.
they say time waits for no one
~
never has there been enough time
to cultivate a sense of fearlessness;
always too much time
to make idols of inspiration
we have remained too young
to say that we live our lives with any grace;
too old to say, this is the end of our allotment
~
after all the hands have been shaken,
all the pages turned, the bellies filled
after all the smiles are spent
and all the comforts acquired,
we sit by the window to watch the colours of our progression
~
some things live out their course
and pass on and away in the height of their glory
but some of us are always green
we wait our turn;
we wait, to turn,
to mature into our very own shade of sienna
~
they say, time waits for no one
but for some, it never comes at all
some things hurt us more than all the others
~
sometimes, time dredges up the pain of our old selves;
memories of poisons we’ve drunk and those we’ve made
the beauty of our face is made unpleasant by our re-livings;
the heart burns and sobs, a prisoner to the scorching coals inside
we must remain perfectly still
lest we further fuel the fire that consumes us
everything we see, we have seen before,
and before that,
and now it flickers in our eye once again.
the time of our rose has passed us,
and we become more bitter by the day
reach out your hand and pluck us, love;
remove us from the misery of these days
~
this is not our season;
this place is not our stage
linger though we might,
we are so much less dazzling
though we recall how beautiful
we’ve once been
the blossom that grew us
from the seed of our names
robed us in a quality,
innate
have we been asleep,
or have we been afraid
to let go, to move on,
come what may?
there is no telling
what we will be
the moment after the one
where we are
what fruit may we bear,
if we trust in ourselves,
if we let ourselves be,
who we are?
~
our bitterness weighs
on the very branch that nurtured us,
and we wilt and we droop in our pain
our poison spreads
we see it,
but we don’t stop it,
and that makes us very afraid.
who can say what should be done?
~
no longer can i breathe without running,
no longer can i eat before moving,
no longer can i speak before listening
no longer can i do
before asking,
what if,
what if all i am furthering
is irrelevance?
~
have you come here to sit,
or have you come to work hard,
so that you may make something
from nothing at all?
~
play without work
makes only a stomach ache
and love without change,
a costly, boring painting!
i care not for the pleasures
unless
you first give me of pain.
dearest,
has not spring followed every winter of your life?
your task is not to hurry along the new season,
but to grow your stores of patience
so that you may quietly weather the cold
in cycles you fall and rise
in cycles you pain and grow
what is winter if not the ultimate growing pain?
your task is not to despair in the receding light,
but to close your eyes in proportion
so that you may continue to remain in harmony
what is winter if not the ultimate preparation for change?
your task is not to cling to what once grew on you,
but to let what has served its purpose gracefully fall away
so that you may remain open to embrace new plantings
what is winter if not the ultimate opportunity for reflection?
your task is not to cry, not to blind yourself with the memory of what once was,
but to bravely face your bare reflection in frozen pools
so that you may know what you are at your core.
my heart is becoming blind,
but finding meaning in a way that was not open to it before
when the eyes were wide,
the fingers were dead; the world of raised letterforms,
unavailable
my heart is becoming deaf,
but finding meaning in a way that was not open to it before
when the ears were sensitive,
the eyes pre-conceived; the world of fresh signs,
overlooked
my heart is becoming mute,
but finding meaning in a way that was not open to it before
when the mouth ran on,
the ears grew stiff; the world of boundless harmony,
unheard
my heart is losing its mind,
but finding meaning in a way that it could only understand
after walking a new path
of learning
of knowing
of being
~
what sense is this?
which fingers grasp the idea of you?
which eyes are open for your light?
my heart grows an entire body around it
though one existed before
my heart causes an entire body to inflate
into the one the existed before
what pushes on the walls of my old self,
wanting out?
am i to burst, or am i to shed,
what was once dead,
what was once me?
saara 