The Forest that Never Ends

It was a chilly dawn at the forest that never ends. The gurgle of the nearby stream and the sound of the singing trees, lulled the tired pixies to sleep. However, Mr.Woody Woodpecker was pecking away at a gigantic redwood tree, one sliver of bark at a time, just like he would want his troubles to go away.

In the distant east, a band of scrawny runaway girls were making merry in the dead of the night, singing the tunes of the forest and dancing to the rhythm of the humming leaves. Alice, in her feather cap and leafy clothes walked away from the merry band of girls and just walked, not wanting to return. She needed new friends who would care for her.

Now, Alice had walked miles and miles, in circles, squares and triangles and her stomach was growling in hunger.She was resting under a nearby redwood tree and she heard " Knock Knock Knock Knock", Mr. Woody pecking away at the top of the tree.  " Mr. Woody, Mr Woody... Please come down, I want to speak to you" called Alice and the knocking stopped. Mr. Woody flew down to the patch of grass where Alice was sitting. " Yes my dear girl, what do you need?" asked Woody and Alice replied " I need an apple and a friend".

" I can give you an apple, but I can't be your friend" said Woody and a forlorn Alice asked " why not, Mr Woody?".

Woody let out a heavy sigh... " because I tend to get too close to people, Alice and then they go away. I don't want you to go away so you can sit here and I'll fly back up and let's just be".

" Mr. Woody!" Alice called him back as she reached out for his beak.

" You don't have to be alone, because I was once like you,lost, but now I found you. We can give strength to each other and care for each other too".

Alice hugged Mr. Woody and they ate an apple together basking in the morning sunlight, leaking through the spaces between the dense redwood leaves. 

It was a beautiful morning at the forest that never ends and the pixies all danced merrily.

To Poetry

It seems so long

since lead grazed a papyrus dark

to try to make meaning

to emote.

So long

that it feels almost forgotten

buried deep by the tides of meaning

And willed neuronal plasticity.

Oh dear poetry,

Oh beautiful muse, oh bride divine,

I miss your gushing out of a loosely held, loosely led piece of chalk

Your emergence

With no see-able cause but some eddies of life

And your birth

Though imperfect in correspondence (to an ideal)

so complete in yourself

Waving your sense of purpose and contentment-

over your so called author.

Weaving yourself into your own creations

Creating, animating-

Coding, executing

Architecting possible worlds

complete, coherent, sound

Oh poetry,

Come back, please...

I await on my knee

With a ring beheld towards thee

With expectance and honesty, humble, but with no humility-

Will you marry me?

**

(I'd written this a long time ago. Forgotten, it lay maturing in my file. It seemed apt that I post this now, now that it had lost feeling and depth, and yet, not untimely)

Stale Sweat

Sound of a rattling window
Smell of stale sweat,
Hovers oppressively,
Choking me,
On this bus
On a journey
to the golden place
where I came to fill my heart.
Instead,
There is an awkward heaviness
that has enveloped me,
enough,
for an exposed armpit
to leave me bitter and nauseous.

There is nowhere, to vomit
and eject the pain. 

It's a bird! It's a plane! No. It's a JRF flying away.

If you will dance with me to the rhythm of reason
humbly we can turn the waltz
Toward a life of liberation,
meaning and inspired action.

{ A meaningless exercise suddenly ended
leaves a sour aftertaste of disappointment
and that all too familiar sense of despair;
It claims 'tshall measure my life in shaded bubbles;
If worthy thee, oh unworthy me, oh unworthy me! }

In my world, space is not made, 'tis claimed
On worth of plausibility, coherence, consistency.
We stand on shoulders
of folk who are boulders
who stand on other shoulders.
Shoulders not of people, but -
Ideas - and their kith and kin.

There is the infinite continuum;
(In principle inconceivable that we know all that be,
and therefore 'tis infinite.)
For us, unlimited, though perchance warped,
connections forming small blots of packed waves,
Where, to be is to be connected
(not its esse, no; but merely the way we operate).

We are eagles who leave our trails,
(and this, perchance, we have not yet with contend)
For what effects our flights prime.

But here we are, the whole world open,
Ease yourself, ankle squint,
and then,
take flight, take flight, take flight...

Night Sky at Majestic

The sky was an easel
waiting,
to be painted on
with twinkling stars,
a golden moon,
and I splashed,
red,yellow and blue
everywhere.

Was the sky angry?
I didn't stick around
to show I care.

Blown Away on Sri Lankan Airlines UL 171

Beautiful things seem to happen to me inside air planes.

I returned to Bangalore from my homeland yesterday and when I got onto the airport bus at the beginning of the journey, to be taken to the air plane, I glanced at a familiar face but did not make contact as I was not sure. However on a second glance, she spoke up " Hey! How are you?" she asked and then I went over to her and began to talk to her, though I was still unsure as to who she really was. Her name was Smriti and she was travelling with her mother. We parted ways at the entrance of the air craft and I went ahead and found my seat, 8A to be precise.

I was sorting out my hand luggage when Smriti and her mother approached the same row and they sat down on the two seats next to me. Now, how random is that? I was totally smiling.

We all attended to the nitty gritty of flight safety and then Smriti decides to completely blow me away.

" I must thank you again for your lifesaving skills"

I obviously had no clue as to what she was talking about and managed a confused ' huh?'.

" Ya, you saved my life once in my first year of college. You probably wont remember".

It hit me then, " Oh! in the pathway...." was all I could say and she just smiled.

Smriti had an allergic reaction to a medicine she had taken and was semi-conscious and lying prone on the university pathway when I happened to walk by, and I stopped to help as I was trained in first aid.
This was more than four years ago and yet she remembered me and ended up sitting next to me on the flight.

How does one explain things like this?

A life I touched years ago touched me so profoundly yesterday and a connection just blossomed out of it. I am amazed at the beauty of the universe and at how things occur and we all connect. It's just so very beautiful and almost surreal.

We are all interconnected and touch each other's lives one way or the other

Esse

[- est percipi?]

With open arms in the moonlight I behold the universe and cry, "What is your purpose? Why do you exist?" And with its characteristic silence, the universe replies, silence.

What is it indeed to exist? Life sciences hint towards survival and reproduction. Physics, towards symmetry. Spirituality towards a romantic universal. Ethics towards Kantian deontology. Philosophy yearns after the nature of existence. And yet, no one can give an answer which is complete, which is indeed characteristic of all answers. As theorised in Jaina naya, each one can but nimbly offer a part.

The universe, in all scientific probability that our knowledge can muster, has no purpose in the human sense of that word. It does not exist for a reason, things do not happen for a reason, it does not proceed towards any vision, aim or goal; reason here being a preordained or a divined process. There is, however, something to be believed in causality, and the expansion of the universe.

*

Softly, I remind myself, we have one life. Carpe diem. But if the day has not been seized in manners that doth not please, worry not; 'tis not to be frothed in worry, days be; they be.

That's the best I can come up with right now.