ink bridge

We often wonder how life and its things begin, how love is found, how joys are treasured. On this lookout we often forget how it all will end. How life would cease to be. That last day is the hardest thought to cope with, to let go of all that these moments hold for us. Even our incomplete fate, even our unfulfilled wishes. Even this imperfect story is too dear to let go. And in this retrospect our gratitude magnifies. This is where true happiness lies. This where the mind meets clarity, and the voice learns modesty.

A world racing against itself. Chaos. Cacophony. Far cry. And snap! A moment of great pause. An ever-long halt of the senses. An inevitable irony in the scheme of things. A spell-breaking crack in the routine. This is it. The moment of euphoria. The moment of trance. A resonance that extracts from inside each of us a victim. The world is slowing down. Emancipation is near.

Not a whisper, no wonder, no check on the heart. Blood would clot, flesh shall be wrought. Not a dime worth of task, not a shell worth the hiding. No autumn, no rains, no summer blaze. One day the mind would be quiet, the lips frozen, the eyes a meek shadow. Ink would dry, but the words would stay. Write on.

Picking up a pen over everything else is a difficult choice. The Jamaican dub poet Michael Smith writes in Before I Lay Me Down:                                       certain of nothing                                    but the certainty of doubt. These lines can be relevantly taken as an echo of rational paradox for all writers. Why does one write? For acclaim? Distinction? Pursuit? Urge? Ambition? Inspiration? Nay. These are mere commoners. So much so is true for any industry. Passion single-handedly cannot decide the mark of destiny. So, what is it that makes a writer, writer? Perhaps, the choice itself. When you know that everything that you deserve to be would never suffice what you already are. When you know anything else wouldn't justify what you already are. The hardest choice to make i...

Trees shrug off old and worn out leaves. It is not, however, any rejection of the now-so-insignificant, but rather an acceptance of the transition. It is a farewell to the departing. It is that sad beauty of letting go of the things without any grimace. Melancholy, after all, is a meditation of the soul. Those leaves that are destined to dry and wither aren't sorrowful either. They sun-dance in the winds. They celebrate their transformation into stardust. What is more beautiful than a yellow leaf, seemingly lifeless yet drunk with rejoice, sweeping across landscapes? What is more beautiful than going away with a belonging that nothing can take away? Await we all like deciduous trees in the winters of our lives. To be taken by the hope of unseen springs.

It was quite long time back, one summer of my juvenile years, when I wrote my first poem. It was on the drying leaf of a small poplar tree that stood in the garden of my house. I do not remember what I wrote, for I had no inkling by then that I would prefer ink and paper over posh jobs and banknotes. I wrote those few lines and gave it to the river that whizzled past by hundred meters ahead.  I did not know much about poetry even then and I have never been bothered to know about the standing forms of poetry ever, except for my academic pursuits. Poetry to me is emotion first and imagery later. A wind in any form is a wind first. A flower in all its genesis is first a flower irrespective of its varieties and vagaries. I cherish the treasure of all wonderful poets and their works time has brought to us. I keep them close to my heart. But, as a poet, I respond to a new age of poetry. Poetry that touches the core of your hearts with even a pair of words. Even without rhythm, mete...