Solitaire

Gentle but bright she gleams
Her light pecks on crystal steams
The aura quiet a sight to spot
Her charm twists the heart to a knot.
A thing of beauty, forever a joy!
For you and me to see and enjoy -
The star she is, the brightest yet,
Clad in chiffon, draped in Georgette.

She slips in and out of many a guise
Conceals aches in those soulful eyes
Her skill, what skill! It wraps it all,
Obscure behind a see through wall.
She sports a smirk before the strain
Her skill what skill, she masters the feign.
Dancing diva, queen of hearts
Mistress of a thousand arts.

The star she is the brightest yet,
Outshining million peers to threat!
Don't blame her light, it's quiet innate
Her rays, they are immaculate.
The smile that sports hundred delights
Hides the inmost web of plights.
Behold, she is one of a kind
A mystery, a riddle, an enigma - defined!


Pictured -  a Glimpse of Masai Mara National reserve, Kenya 
Courtesy - Chandra Elango

Blessing

One day, You'll gaze at her
By chance, without intent.
You'll walk by, bored
Of your uneventful day,
And decide to consider the unseen.
Little would you realize
She's been right there
In front of your eyes, all these years.

You'll look at what you had looked through -
Those skeletons of emotions,
Lying there to find a confidant
The many glistening hopes of
Yearning for a binding,
Lost in the distance of apathy.
The sprouts of dreams
Craving for an ally
Confined to the grounds of indifference.

When you discover her -
Take your time, breath in that grace!
That prize, unaware of her own price
Awaits the detached,
To latch you to rapture.
Take your time, thank your stars -
For this fleeting life
Might not reward you twice!

Pic courtesy - Chandra Elango

Ultra

She sits across him studying his face. He's engrossed in the papers he is skimming through. She traces his features - boyish looks, kind eyes framed by thin rimmed glasses, acne scars that look fresh from yesterday. She reflects upon his lucent smile that stays put like a permanent fixture, his best feature perhaps  - that smile that she'd never ever not seen. Even at this very moment, the ends of his lips are curved upward, like he is greeting his paperwork.

She has seen him quiet a lot - being in the same classroom as kids and adolescents made him strangely familiar to her though they hadn't interacted much all those years. They meet again, on and off and she smiles thinking of all the good memories. This is a guy that left a deep seated influence on her though they didn't have a distinct friendship. The interactions were sporadic, but she reflects upon them time and again, almost drawing a certain take away every time she traces those conversations back. He seems to have frozen in time, but there's something about him that she sees differently now.

"The smile may be?" She thinks to herself! "Was I in unrealized love?" She questions herself and outwardly negates it with a mild head shake. She is in awe. Like one would be with a hero. His brains and achievements were the stuff of many high school cafeteria discussions. But when she sees him this day, she realizes that she was never in awe with his brains as she is with his spirit. That unfazed smile - sigh! Isn't a perpetual smile associated with realized souls? like that dainty beam she spots on the face of the Christ or Buddha? Her comprehension seems to have suddenly expanded its horizons. She seems to have assimilated all those preexisting but unprocessed feelings around his presence. She is half tempted to disturb him and ask him if he ever gets angry - the tranquility she has seen him display from their childhood days and the way he has never let that beaming smile leave his lips even through conversations, his soothing voice that never raised an octave higher than necessary to hear- It would probably be the privilege of a select few to see that other side of him - the anger, the irritation, the unrest - which she somehow suspects is non existent.

He lifts his head up and catches her staring at him. His eyes light up and that immortal smile brightens up a few notches when their eyes meet. She doesn't bother to look away. She smiles back at him, a plethora of tender feelings drift through her heart! That moment generates a whole body of communication between them.That moment, perhaps, also defines the quaint bond she shares with him...a bond that buds in his smile and blooms in her heart.

Picture courtesy - Rahul Khanna's instagram (for that kind of a smile 😉)

Solitude

She spots him from the window of the coffee shop and looks at him with great interest. His visual inspires a million thoughts in her and they bring along with them some deeply buried memories of school days. Her mind conjures up poems she had committed to memory. Sometimes she wonders if those many things that she'd heard and read in the past come back to her by themselves, haunting her present or if she has this psychic ability to connect dots and make profound sense out of random and utterly ordinary sights that cross her mind.

Behold her, single in the field, 

Yon solitary Highland Lass! 

Reaping and singing by herself; 

Stop here, or gently pass! 

Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 

And sings a melancholy strain; 

O listen! for the Vale profound 

Is overflowing with the sound. 

Bits and pieces of 'The solitary reaper' seem to fit into the sight before her - the old man, with his wares and words, sitting by the sidewalk and lost in his crossword puzzle, firmly there, but oblivious in his thought, immersed in the mundane task of making a living, but living his life all the same. She makes up stories  around him - he probably has very supportive kids that are begging him to give up his toil and retire, or he has no kids at all and is supporting himself? - The many tales that she weaves around him entertain her while she gets lost in the intensity of the man’s concentration on the task ahead of him.  This Dusty little pavement doesn’t hold a candle to the Scottish highlands nor does the task of selling inexpensive hoisery parallel  with reaping a harvest amid soul stirring nature, but she somehow sees the visual in poetic perfection. The eyes of the beholder, they say - and she senses a strange pride in the way her eyes present to her angles to the soul of her universe.

Picture courtesy - Dhiren Shah. 

Evasion

She glides around her day like a superwoman, juggling work and home like an ace. She doesn't even realize how much she accomplishes being a multi-tasker, for her focus is never on herself but on the job ahead of her. This morning, she sits in her cubicle a little too long, gazing at the art work her son made for mother's day. Mackerel clouds almost shaped like a fish and a caption amid them reading "I love you to the sky and back" She smiles as she tries to settle the unrest in her heart and spine. Somethings bother her to no end...they get under her skin. She, being the gentle soul, always disregards her discomforts to accommodate others. A blunt pain keeps at her lower spine and she shuts her eyes to ease it, trying to convince herself to ignore the twinge in the vertebrae. "I am absolutely fine" she reassures herself - this phrase comes handy every time she encounters a strain, be it physical or emotional. These words let her spread out her boundaries, rising her threshold for the many afflictions of life - Broken promises, disappointments, insults, deceits, heartbreaks - "I am absolutely fine" is the one magic pill of words that cures all her worldly ailments. She reflects upon the many encroachments on her soul and quickly shuts them off. For nothing qualifies as a hurt if you tell yourself it isn't - fib your way through the hindrances of life with the magical four letters " I am absolutely fine"

Today the talisman isn't working. The caffeine isn't working either. Her pain in the spine resonates with the unaddressed, often ignored pain in the heart. She doesn't give up easily. She tries to deep breath and meditate on the drawing her son made - looking at her insides as scales of unhealed wounds denied with vehemence. But today she decides differently.

"I am not fine" she makes an admission at last. I need a break. She quickly grabs her purse and steps out to finally address those scales long ignored, to nurse that back ache and heart ache. Because she discovers that the worst kind of lies are the lies we tell ourselves.

Picture Courtesy - Chaitanya Kanni

Unfinished

They were meant to be, that bound souls were supposed to meet, to fill in some craters, some petty dents sustained while lost in the woods of life. Those kindred spirits were to dwell here upon the weirdness of existence. They were supposed to catch up or complain - to bare it all without filters, so the other could collect their gripes and somehow stretch them around and soothe them into acceptance. They were to look through the view, contemplating upon their challenges, to seek counsel and provide solace. They were to laugh till they cry and then cry some cause they have to do that too, to somehow flush out the frozen heartaches. They were supposed to thrive in each other's company, lending a shoulder to lean upon, or the much needed ear - cause what are intense emotions worth unless they are shared with someone? That laughter, those tears, those hopes and fears - they all need an audience or a witness to coax those feelings into everlasting smiles or bearable burdens.

It was meant to be. But it might not be....cause sometimes they are too busy. Sometimes one of them might exit unannounced. Sometimes they might consider it a bit too much or plan it to an exhaustion that plonks at execution. Cause sometimes, they might lose their plot or just be so caught in their conceptions or lack there of that they might never cross the road or even meet the other mid way, or worse yet, they might nurse a miscommunication tad much and smother their empathy to non existence.

Here's the silence, clad in emptiness,  mourning all those unrealized 'Meant to Bes.'

Picture courtesy - Dhiren Shah. Wildernest, Chorla.

Genuine

Eva gets a call from the same number for the umpteenth time, a number she cannot recognize. She picks it up wondering if it is an important call that shouldn't be missed. "Hello" a female voice responds. "How are you Eva? I had been trying to reach you for long to say thanks" the voice continues. Eva places the exotic accent. "Oh hello there Sana" She greets cheerfully. "Why do I need to be thanked?" she wonders aloud. "For my job recommendation" Sana replies.

Eva experiences a blanked out moment. She recollects recommending Sana to a trainee opening in a friend's work place months ago. It paid a meager stipend but Sana was looking to get back to work after a long hiatus. "I am so sorry" she manages. I never knew you got a placement there. It wasn't a big deal. I found about the trainee position and thought about you. Glad you fit right in" She sounds very happy for Sana.

"May I come by tomorrow to see you?" Sana asks. "I would like to say thanks in person" 

"I would love to see you, but hey, there's nothing much to thank here. I am sure they loved you enough to offer you a permanent position" 

"But I was there in the first place because you cared to recommend me" Sana insists. They have a chuckle about this blame game and decide to meet the next day.

Sana shows up with a vase of white buttercup roses, luscious and lively. "I know you are a nature lover, but I had to buy you something that didn't die the moment I turn my back on you. I want you to look at these silk flowers and remember me as often as you can" she quips. 

"Look at them...how natural they look" Eva offers genuine praise. Besides white is my favorite color. It fits so well into my shabby chic living space" 

They catch up on life. Eva remembers how Sana, in their last meeting months ago, comes to pay for some medicines she got her from a friend's apothecary, though Eva keeps telling her that it was a chicken feed of an amount and she shouldn't bother. Sana relates a Burmese fable to Eva about the Owl, crow and koel. When owl gets hurt, he seeks help from crow. Crow knows of koel that treats ailments and takes his friend owl to her. Koel suggests a remedy that cures the owl and asks for her payment. Owl promises to pay it later and crow vouches for the owl. Later when it is time to pay, the owl refuses to pay the koel. As a result, crow ends up repaying his friend's dues by tending to koel's eggs.

"I don't want to ever be like the owl" Sana adds, and make someone pay for my dues no matter how small. Eva smiles and accepts the money, won over by how Sana thinks through the minutest of things and puts a wonderful perspective to them. It is these little things that Sana does that makes Eva get a sense of the person Sana is....Honest, considerate, reliable and very thoughtful. Eva kind of senses why Sana is so readily welcomed into the work space. She feel certain that Sana does bigger things with as much love and care as she does the smaller ones.

After the ladies catch up on their lives, Sana takes leave, thanking her again and apologizing yet again for not bringing her real flowers. They both joke and laugh over the matter and part ways.

Eva places the flowers on her whitewashed coffee table. The sunlight filtering through the windows hit the petals and lend them a grace only light could lend. They look lit from within...She admires them, gently stroking on the lush lifelikeness of the buttercups. From where she sees it, a gesture of gratitude couldn't be any more heart touching than these beauties she's feasting her eyes upon.

"Blessed are the ones that give without remembering, Blessed are the ones that get without forgetting" Her dad's favorite quote rings in her ears as she spends a moment devouring the wee joys of life.

View

They sit across each other, sipping on their coffee. "So how's life treating you these days?" He asks. "I cannot put a finger on it!" she replies back. They have a bond that cannot be classified under any conventional nomenclature. They share the comfort of siblings and the proximity of close friends without ever delving too much into each other's lives. The encounters are few, but the exchange of words often unearth abstruse realities of life, be it about love, loss, parenting or personal challenges.
She knows she could seek advice, bare it before him like she feels it but her words elude her this time. The feelings crossing her mind escape the clarity of symbols and that's what she particularly seeks to solve in this rendezvous.

"I feel stuck" she manages, avoiding eye contact. He smiles. "That's how this age is supposed to feel, no biggie" He dismisses her concern. "Try to write it out" he offers. "I am sure you can find yourself in the confines of your writings, and you don't even need to share it with anyone except yourself."

This conversation isn't going anywhere she wants it to go. They absentmindedly nurse on their coffee mugs when she says it in a trance "I feel like I am on a dead end - like one of those 'not a through street' signs you spot when you are lost" - She feels a bit of a relief to have said that much. She does feel lost..or more importantly stuck, like she could identify before.

"When you cannot go forward, go up.When you go up, you have a clearer view of things"

She reflects upon the lines and a light floods her insides. They smile and get lost in the reverie of life, those souls that connect at a level that cannot be named.


Photo Credit - Chandra Elango, somewhere in NZ.

Zen

She is an expert at pushing her limits. She doesn't really head the senate or figure out complex quadratic equations, nor does she take her SUV to get to the city to make money - for herself, for someone else or both. Instead, she basks in the glory of the passe, humdrum oddities. Putting up with an audacious teen for instance, or trying to use her imagination into understanding why a particular neighbor is always grumpy. She saves her jibes and sarcasm for very special occasions, often letting others take a lead. She apologizes a little too often, and recurrently offers thanks for the smallest of things. She can be viewed as a birdbrain, for her trusting nature can be borderline gullible from where you look at it. She talks politely, holds doors open for all and sundry and smiles at every passerby. She seems to have struck a cord with the world by simply letting it be and by letting herself being slotted into a non entity. Her nonchalance startles herself sometimes - "Is this coming of age?" she wonders. The constant counting, haggling and disagreements around her, over trivialities, charm her to no end. She soaks in without a protest and cogitates about things on a higher plane. Letting the world lead is viewed as fulfilling from where she sees it. She could be a dog for all practical purposes, more than a human being. A dog that doesn't hold on to past hurts or keep tabs on the the trespasses done onto her. She believes happiness comes form within and lets absolutely nothing or no one disrupt it for her. You probably spot her once in a while, riding a tram or buying groceries at the local farmer's market. I wish to meet her too...somewhere out there, or in here, if possible!

From where she sees It

Lisa holds her book snugly in her hand. Sitting in the passenger seat is an opportunity she avails to her heart's content. Today she decides to complete her book that had been sitting a tad too long on her night stand. The vehicle picks up momentum as her eyes lazily graze the scene outside.
'The book'! she remembers and opens it and buries her nose inside it. This decides to be the 'out of the ordinary' book anyway....or Lisa probably hand picks the works that she deems worthy of her attention. She silently gasps a little too often, looking up to sink in the depth of the words that flood her insides with revelations, emotions or just plain awe.

Suddenly a long forgotten strain of music erupts on the radio, as if she needs enough props to divert her 'as short as a toddler' attention span. A series of events from the past come flooding as the music travels into her untapped, subconscious memory. She marvels at the word play, at the choice of instruments in the orchestra and the delicate voice that renders it, holding just long enough onto the words that need emphasis creating a bedlam of thoughts in Lisa's mind.

She absentmindedly leans on to the window and her eyes travel to the sky. She spots a California bald eagle. "Wow" she exclaims out loud remembering how she read that these magnificent birds make their appearance in her part of the world during winter months..."Is this a sign?" she wonders, just as she spots another eagle tracing the path the of the first one.

The music continues in the background, bits and pieces of the lovely lyric begs her for her undivided attention. Just then, Lisa spots a name board placed conspicuously to the corner of a building that looks like a huge, inverted moving box. "The father's house" the board reads. Nothing else - Lisa wonders what a business named "The father's house" would offer to the patrons! "How cool would it be to walk into a store named your father's house and discover that ragged doll, rattan chair or the stainless steel plate rack that mounted on to the side of the kitchen in your father's home? Or a ghost of a fun time being had by the family around the board game or dinner table?"

She snaps back into reality, determined to complete the book. Just as she finishes the next page, she wonders when those blank canvasses in her bedroom closet would see the light of the day bathed in her imagination. "I have become so much of a voyeur" her thoughts taunt her, as she spots a herd of jet black birds making a horizontal "Mexican wave" in the air parallel to her ride. "Show offs" she rolls her eyes in mock sarcasm marveling at the symmetry of those flecks of black in the sky. She has seen these herds before, lounging on the electric cables last year around the same time. She makes a mental note to google them once she reaches home. She lets out a deep exhale and gives up on the book. The margin of the road sports a carpet of dandelions, some in bloom and some burst into the airy white balls. "some see a weed, some see a wish" - Random social media wisdom pops in her head as she lets out a quiet giggle.

Lisa lives that moment, suspended in a sensory overload, wondering if creating something would mean any more than devouring the beauty of what exists around her.

Inspired by true events.

Photo - Donner lake, NV by Chandra Elango

Life

It really isn't more than how you look at it -

Dozens of crayons, sporting messy smudges 

From cozily snuggling into the pencil case.

Then those little pots of color

Catching those many condiments

And concoctions of yummy ingredients

Simmering on the cook top.

Random handmade finds, hanging as reminders

Of life lived.

Those reams of un-shredded junk mail

Unread rows of books waiting to be devoured,

Amid punctuation of a rusted routine.

And the magical occurance

Of piles and piles of plates and garments

Await their scrub or clean

To fall back into a loop of just that.

Little feet gliding through a disarray of building blocks

Leaving tell tale signs of toddlerhood

A freehand doodle with a Sharpie

Or those tacky ketchup smudges on a snow-white tee!

Amidst all this color, clutter and chaos

Another page flips by

In this blitz of existence.