There
are flesh-blood dreams
warm
and gettable
a
‘there’ not too far from ‘here’
an
embrace
just
a few heartbeats away,
a
breath that will be shared
a
covenant that will be kept;
but
there are others less licit
where
eye and mind
must
walk and walk
and
feet must wait and wait
and
imagination expand
from
wingtip to wingtip
glide
on blueness
in
unrippling tenderness
seek
in in elemental residencies
in
the ways that were lost
and
in the losing ways
the
worlds that are
but
may not be,
by
and by.
[Inspired by the photography of Dr. Harin Dias, to be exhibited at the Lionel Wendt on March 2 and 3, 2013]
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In the high table they sat
pondering fact and fiction
law and order
right and wrong
crime and punishment
and down below
the judged waited
for word and execution;
from up above
the truth-sun beamed
in cloudless moments
of brevity and insanity,
and down below
the worms were patient:
death comes, now and then,
sooner or later.
The mountains look blue
and trees green
distance robs blemish
paints a pastorality
that immediacy will not concede;
she is lovely to hold
and lovelier beyond reach;
and that too
is an A-Z
of love and loving.
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 |
| Pic by Hiranya Malwatta |
Freedom is a name
of many syllables
places and people,
a leap of faith that defies
constitutional edict
executive directive
judicial verdict,
it takes restrictive arm
as dancer takes partner
takes rule and bends with smile
takes book and scrambles
chapter and verse
reconfigures flag-color
re-mixes anthem
without proclamation
without anger or regret;
freedom is another name
left out
of the Dictionary of Being
to stop definer
to stump purchaser
to trip destroyer.
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There are walled cities
I am told,
marshalled by regimen
where minds open
and doors close
at appointed hour;
where life ebbs
as in other cities
as splendid and poor
as structured and free,
moment to moment
task to task,
where custom rules
and custom-break
subverts unyielding earth
for root to seek
and leaf to upturn
decree’s hard unsanctioned soil,
but here
the apparitions of the forgotten
recovered corporeal form
flattened barbed wire,
rose above wall
to ask
‘who among you is free
and who among us is not?’
Not king-made
but king-envisioned,
speaks of eyes
that drew from contour
drew for lay-of-land
and lay-of-life
that saw land that would grain
people who would sow
and reap
from century to century
and today we stand
on history’s shores
and are stilled by the blues
and so standing draw
from the tap root
of heritage
resolution and magnitude
humility and pride
as we cross the hour-to-hour
in the vessels of choice
and fashion a next moment
as wholesome, as tender.
LEAVE A COMMENT
Open
eyes
and
then enters
rock,
pebble, sand granule
blue,
red and yellow
in
their specific intimacies
lines
that curve
with
and without light
shades
that toss and turn
in
anxiety and agitation
mystery
and bewilderment
surprise
and sorrow
but
framed
always
and always
by
eye-limit
and
poverties of imagination;
and
in the long corridors
and
vast halls of extraction
there’s
a world that bends
to
lens and mouse-click
warps
known dimension
finger-flips
the heart,
still
even,
and
there
in
interface and union
we
are cursed or blessed
by
and eye and world
now
and forever.
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