Returning

`
I am tired now and need returning
Back where I grew up in,
Where they sing in a tongue I used to know
But such a long time it has been.

I've been too cold and been too dry
Too far away too long,
Will you not fill my cup again
So once more I may belong?

Your wind rustles the leaves up high
Can't it rustle me too,
Return me my voice again
That I may sing with you?

The city has kept painting me
With a myriad hues,
Won't your rain now heal away
The scars of that abuse?

The world's too big and I too lonely
I've earned too much to own.
Come, wash away this loneliness
While I sit with you alone.
`

Crystal Ridge, NY,

June, 2011

Man's search for meaning

`
Over the ages, I have meditated
Relentlessly
Searching for a meaning;
An answer to the why
That glues this endless matrix
Of matter and of consciousness.

And how defeated I have felt!
This earnest quest,
Over hundreds and thousands of years,
Has revealed nothing.
Nothing.

On the contrary,
I have understood much.
I have discovered in wonderment
So many hows to the universe's inner workings.
I have revealed a universe full of breathtaking order
I have revealed laws,
And in the courtroom of that universal lawmaker
Everything, from the tiniest atom to the mightiest galaxy,
Is held equal.
Through my seeking
I have continually squeezed out
The magic from the universe,
And like an excited child
Replaced it with fancy contraptions of my own.

And yet, even with all the momentary joys
These have provided me with,
I have remained unquenched.
This ever-growing knowledge of material existence
Has remained shorn of meaning:
Exciting but purposeless.

Yearning for meaning,
I have taken recourse to well-crafted lies;
I have invented religions, and fabricated fairytales
Trying hard to pacify the unrest within
With falsehood.
Again and again, I have devised pre-occupations
To busy myself into forgetfulness.
I have invented innumerable toys
To distract myself.
But eventually, everything has begun to dry up
And the thirst for a purpose
Has become more and more fundamental,
More and more unrelenting.

And now, I have begun to wonder,
Can it be that I will really never know
What all this meant, means, will mean?
The why to all my questions
The why of all hows?

Will I not discover, some day
By chance or by meditation
The eternal, ultimate purpose?
Can it not simply be revealed,
Can I not be that chosen one?

Or will I discover,
To my devastation
That there is no meaning to be found?
That in all this how there is no why!
That my search
Over hundreds of millenia
Was but for the non-existent?

Or maybe, I will discover
That there is a meaning
That I cannot know
Or cannot comprehend
A meaning, not meant for me!
Will my existence
Be then reduced
To the intelligence and the innocence
Of a mere robot
In a greater orchestra?

How would I,
My ego
Accept such an eventuality?
Would I then rise in revolt
Against my master?
Or, would I then,
Finally
Become a believer?

`

White Plains, NY,

June, 2011

Habits

`
Back when I was young
I was excited all the time
I would dart about, or laugh, or cry
Without reason, without rhyme

But then they all told me,
"You're restless, calm down.
Sit here, learn some manners
And stop being a clown."

I was a nuisance (I thought)
I needed to be calm
I practised being patient
So calm I could become

And slowly as I grew
Ever calm, I tried to be
I made a thorough habit of it
And that habit became me.


Thus goes on this list
Of what (I thought) I ought to be
And a potful of these habits now
Is what has become me

And tonight it seems so funny
This myth I've lived in:
Believing I cannot be
What my habits haven't been.
`

Baltimore, MD,

October 2011