Normal

I took one straight look at him,
No words were exchanged.
We both smiled at each other, and I thought-
He seems normal!

We walked along a long winding road,
Just him, me, and a couple of birds,
that followed us closely because
he was dropping bread crumbs for them at every step.

I asked him if he had eaten dinner yet,
It was past 9 pm and he answered-
Perhaps I have.

Now I thought- what does that mean? Perhaps?
That can't be normal.

Maybe he is trying to hide something from me.
Or maybe he is mourning one of the birds that dropped dead halfway through it's meal? 

I am afraid of asking what's wrong.
Maybe something is terribly amiss,
Maybe he thinks that I am too stupid to understand.
Or maybe he thinks that I am too weak to bear the news. 

Maybe the game is too complex to be fathomed by normal minds.
Maybe he was in deep thought and
Maybe I had merely disturbed his silence.
Or maybe he was just annoyed by the silly question.
If "perhaps" is not normal, then can "maybe" be?

 

-Srividya
Feb 7, 2015

The Non-Road Taken

I have certainly walked down this road before.
I have walked down this road-
not once, not twice,
but probably a trillion times.

 

This road is not my way home.
This road is not my way out.
This road is certainly not my destiny.
This road is my exile!

 

But my feet,
they think that this road is the only one.
My feet know nothing better than
to keep walking on any road;
And this is the only one there is!

 

But my mind has seen my destiny,
in a different direction
where there is no road.
But my feet cannot walk on a non-road!

 

So I have to jump and
believe that I can fly.
Because freedom is my destiny.
My wings will take me where my feet cannot.

 

-Srividya (July 12, 2014)

I can't pretend anymore

I am laughing right now but tears,
Have already formed-
Behind those crinkled eyelids. I pretend to not notice, and
Continue on laughing. 

 

Those tears start to fall.
Now I can't pretend to not notice
These warm drops on my cheeks.

 

I watch morbidly as
All of a sudden
They start rolling down in streams.

 

Within moments
My laughter morphs into despair.
I just watch this strange phenomenon
Knowing that laughter and despair are each
Nonexistent without the other.

 

-Srividya (May 6, 2014)

Recognition

I walk down the street and I find

that same person I always see.

With his long beard and walking stick,

his shadow spread across the street,

and smoke flitting in little circles from his cigarette.

 

With a mysterious smile, he

leans forward some, to rest on his walking stick

As if he beckons, for me to join in,

on his lovely journey to the other side of the world.

 

I want to stop and notice him, but I find that my feet take me further away.

I turn around, but my eyes resist seeing him.

And Oh! I realize I dont recognize

who I have become anymore.

 

He was a guidepost

in the convoluted grid of space and time,

And because I have learned to recognize him now,

it is, but a matter of time,

until I find myself.

 

-Srividya March 2014

The dancer and his dance.

A convulsively distorted face gazed at him,
The two terrible eyes fixed straight upon his own.
With momentary wonder, he thought,
Is this a guardian or ghost?
He couldn't tell.

 

He tried to scream,
To find the voice within;
But there was only silence.
He is asleep today, but knows,
He will become awakened tomorrow.
And, this is but a dream...

In this dream, he began to dance...
that eternal dance between the mundane and the extraordinary. 

How can one know the dancer from the dance?
Oh! They are so hopelessly intertwined.

 

-Srividya
Jan 14, 2014

PS: The last paragraph is a tribute to W B Yeats. I read his poem Among school children and couldn't get his last line out of my mind.

He walks alone

He walks alone...
They call him the lone traveler 

With a calm, composed gait,
He walks on. 

If you need a hand,
On any stretch of your journey,
He will hold your hand and walk with you. 

Across that dangerous bridge,
Over the terrible valley of despair,
Where countless travelers have fallen prey
To the demons of delusion,
He will gently guide you through... 

As you step off that bridge
You may close your eyes for a moment,
to let that shudder go down your spine,
And with gratitude in your eyes,
You may turn around, but he will be gone... 

Without even as much as a nod,
He will have walked right on...
Why did you assume he was your friend? 

Who can tell?
On another bridge someday,
He may walk with you again. 

They call him the lone traveler,
And he walks alone...

 

Srividya
April 12, 2013

A child's play...

The tiny little rabbits,
that hop along the park, regard him not.
He totters along, and in his eyes, his smile,
his wobble, is one expression; every step,
every turn over the shoulder and searching look; all bespeak,
a child who does not move with thought, but moves
with joy — He is untainted, unfettered
and so unprejudiced; he is one by whom
the whole world derives happiness; one to whom
Truth has such deep silence conferred;
that silence seems a thing, of which
he has no need. He is by nature
led to a quietude so perfect, that I behold
with envy, what the young child hardly feels.

 

–He ran towards me smiling, a bounce to his step,
extending a clenched fist; I inquired the nature
of the mysterious object contained therein,
Into those tender eyes I looked, as he proffered
a shiny pebble. I caught a glimpse of silence
dancing in those eyes; and as he pulled away
to find more treasure, I was left stunned
and staring.

--Srividya
Jan 26, 2012

PS: This poem is inspired by the meter in Wordsworth’s Old Man Traveling.

Soldier

I am a soldier.
I am not sure which side I should fight for;
But I must fight-
Because there isn't a way out now.

I can't care which side wins;
I can't care if everything is lost;
I can't even care if I die,
Because I am just a soldier born to fight.

I must fight -
If there is no purpose to life;
There probably isn't
any to death either...

The battle is about to begin,
And the battle must be fought,
I can't run away now,
So I must fight.

-Srividya
Aug 3, 2011

The Difference...

In shame...
One man wishes he were invisible to all,
While the other still has his head held high,
Never giving up his fight.

In grief...
One man wishes to annihilate himself,
While the other continues to plod along,
Oblivious to what grief means.

With a single loss...
One man has lost everything he ever had,
While the other moves on,
With not even as much as a tear.

Amidst difficult people...
One man has built a wall around him,
While the other continues to love and laugh,
At the drama that life holds in store.

In fatigue...
One man has dropped to the earth in desperation,
While the other goes on working,
Like fatigue could never stop him.

In death...
One man has lost the battle,
While the other has just begun,
another wonderful journey.

The difference is...
One man fights, thinking him to be the actor
While the other knows himself to be but the instrument.

-Srividya (Feb 2, 2011)

Hungry

The roaring waves encroached upon the shores,
He reached out his timid fingers to feel ferocity,
With that delicate touch he was transformed,
The recurring dreams had come true,
He had become one of them now!
No tinge of uncertainty remained,
He soared into the sky along with his kin,
Electrifying more people with his soft touch,

Those waves only grew mightier.
Those waves of change had reached the shores...
Silent submission fed their thirst.
Yet they ravaged through the ruins,
Hungrily...

-Srividya
Jan 2010

Am I the dreamer or the dreamed?

I close my eyes and drift
into a dark abyss, into a controled chaos.
Sleep is familiar, so I am not afraid
to dissolve into the unknown wilderness,
the vast ocean of non-existence.

A while later, as if in a dream,
another being arises,
out of the ashes of oblivion,
assuming a new form, a new identity.

With the golden rays of dawn
There is the dissolution again.
Sleep is familiar, so I am not afraid.

But the question always remains-
Am I the dreamer or the dreamed?

-Srividya
Aug 2, 2009