My Love Letters

The wind whispers, it smiles
In your ears and exhales
Its caress, the gentleness
Washing down your back.
The rain moulds itself
To you. It sings, consoles.
As your pores sing back.
The snow, the snow clings.
It lingers, quietly waiting
For your footmarks to cleave onto.
And the moon brings the dark
To look at you as it waits to join you
On the cool side of your pillow.
My love letters, from the wind
And the rain, the snow and moon.
My play mates, my soul mates
My shadow and my light.




(Written in Ikkyu's company.......

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.)

So The Story Goes

There may be the sound of a thousand songs
Colours of infinite rainbows around
The comfort of a hundred eiderdowns
The luxury of endless lace gowns


But if love be gone from filled up spaces
If the caress is warm no more
The song is mute, the colour blind
The comforter cold, the lace dull


Hold not what rents on touch
Choke not what breathes on air
Mark not its spotlessness
Trim not its exuberance


If doubt be there, love walks
If the heart stumbles, love walks
If you know me not, love walks
If you release it not, love walks


Dance close but hold not tight
Stay beside but clutch not tight
Read the unread just meant for you
Hear the unsaid just said for you


Let it move, let it sway, let it live
Beyond time, for it asks not for time
Beyond space for it asks not for a place
Let it breathe for it asks not to bind


Not caged, chained, trapped, set it free!
Not blinded, scorched, scarred, set it free.
It is yours all the more if it sings high
It is yours all the more if it glows

The Tease

Ripe out of fate's sharing box, like clockwork
You get a piece of bad news a year
Sometimes you may get two
Like a tease, the One above meticulously
Dishes out pain intense, satiated
You can take no more; till next year.


April 2011

For I Know Me

I lose myself in moments of joy
I return in times of sorrow
I close not the door to grief
Or tribulation; for I know me
From the heat of my tears.
I know me through my heartbreak.



April 2011

When all I crave

Oh to have the full moon on my palm
Some rarefied polished amber, a secluded coral sanctuary
And the flower that blooms every three thousand years
Or a butterfly cove, a ride on fluffed clouds


The Fabergé egg, or an Aztec coin
Or a Raphael tapestry, a Mauryan map
Perhaps The handwritten copy of Henry viii's Green Sleeves
And the Babylonian clay tablet, the first map of the world


But how can I ask, how can I want and crave
When all I crave, all I crave is to talk to your eyes
Feel the caress of your smile and wait for the moment
When you turn around to look and inhale my soul


April 2011

Baatein hain sab baatein hain

Baatein hain sab baatein hain
Bas baatein khaali baatien hain
Ghannchakkar hai, iztiraab hai
Bhanwar, raige-rawaan, girdaab hai


Aur duur falak ke paar moalaq
Aik aas, ehsaas, intizaar hai
Khwabeeda palkon mein uljha sapna,
Jaagte din mein idraak hai


April 2011