Within the secret sacred shrines of rose
Dwells a scent. This aroma, like gold, glows.
Creation flows. Existence is the scent.
Though the rose fades, its scent lasts without end.
The scent is not on her external skin.
This is in the clashes of seasons' spin.
This aroma springs from her spotlessness.
The fragrance finds the bloom's bottomlessness.
Soul is the core of the scent of goodness.
Within it abides showers of kindness
The stream of scent secretes with dispassion.
It's from here the scent spreads as compassion.
Divine Spirit within me
Coiled like a sinuous snake
This bubbles with energy.
It creates an inner ache.
There's restlessness in my soul.
There's an unquenchable thirst.
It leads me towards my goal.
In this Spirit I'm immersed.
My consciousness is waken.
Conscience fills with compassion.
My existence is shaken.
Life is light with dispassion.
My self-realization
Leads me to liberation
And then it stopped.
The jagged edge of anxiety smoothed
by the fall in slow motion -
A tumble into a pool of tranquility.
Suddenly awakened from the angst
by the splash of a refreshing reality;
reminding me that I need to
swim in peace for a while.
The pool is deep and calming.
It soothes the rawness of disquiet
and the cruelty of dispassion which
has dominated my recent existence.
Resistance melting in the serenity of
the rippling water, I float,
perfectly at peace and calmed by
the composure of the landscape.
It has stopped ………
and I can breathe at last.
Within the secret sacred shrines of any rose
Dwells a well filled with fountains of a unique scent.
This scent pervades the florescence as each bloom glows.
Though the rose may fade, its scent endures without end.
The fragrance is not on her peripheral skin.
This aroma arises from her spotlessness.
Facing each thick and thin of the seasonal spin
The fragrance finds the inmost shrine's bottomlessness.
My soul is the fulcrum of the scent of goodness.
It's from here that the scent spreads in acts of compassion.
With the unending showers of divine kindness
The stream of scent secretes and flows with dispassion.
Could any rose forget and forsake her fulcrum?
It's towards the lesser-known scent, I Am a Pilgrim.
Stealing your thoughts
a crime of dispassion
the penalty fatal
my name stays unknown
A larcenous caper
whose felony looming
authorities chasing
though lost will they roam
Returning your musings
a word to each notion
attached and delivered
through eyes that retake
Enlightened resplendence
unfenced by Jehovah
no borrowers promise
— this thief ever makes
(The 1st Book Of Prayers: March, 2025)
One may well in one swift motion
Snatch a jewel from crocodile jaws,
May swim across a vast ocean
Gone stormy what with giant bows,
Can well fight with a furious snake
And wrap it like garland ‘round neck,
But scarce can please a proven fool,
How so well-schooled he’s, how so cool.
_______________________
Translation | | please, fool
Poet’s Note: Bhartruhari was a poet king in central India in the seventh century CE, who when disillusioned in love renounced kingdom and became an ascetic. Neeti Shatakam, a compilation of hundred verses on moral values was written by him along with Shringar Shatakam on romance, and Vairagya Shatakam on dispassion and renunciation. This verse on fools is taken from Neeti Shatakam.
Prasahya manim uddharet makara-vaktra danshtran
Ankurat samudram api san-taret prachalat urmi malakulam |
Bhujangam api kopitam shirasi pushpavat dharayet
Na tu prati-nivishta murkha jana chittam aradhayet || 4 || Metre: Prthvi-vrtta
Easy to please an ignorant,
Easier still, man of talent,
But too hard ‘tis a call
To please half-baked know all,
Whom, even gods of heaven can’t.
_______________________
Translation | | please, ignorant, intelligent
Poet’s Note: Bhartruhari was a poet king in central India in the seventh century CE, who when disillusioned in love renounced kingdom and became an ascetic. Neeti Shatakam, a compilation of hundred verses on moral values was written by him along with Shringar Shatakam on romance, and Vairagya Shatakam on dispassion and renunciation. This verse on fools is taken from Neeti Shatakam.
Ajnyah sukham aradhyah sukhataram aradhyate visheshajnyah |
Jnyana-lava-durvigdham brahma api naram na ranjayati || 3 || Metre: Arya
Men of learning mired are in envy,
Those of influence, proud and haughty,
As rest are ignorant,
My poems have gone gaunt,
Untold, unread, old and weary.
___________________
Translation | | poet, poem
Poet’s Note: Bhartruhari was a poet king in central India in the seventh century CE, who when disillusioned in love renounced kingdom and became an ascetic. Neeti Shatakam, a compilation of hundred verses on moral values was written by him along with Shringar Shatakam on romance, and Vairagya Shatakam on dispassion and renunciation. This verse is taken from Neeti Shatakam. It seems, even in these olden times, poetry suffered from the same fate as now--getting old unread.
Boddharah matsara-grastah prabhavah smaya-dushitah |
Abodha-upahatah cha anye jirnam ange subhashitam || 2 || Meter: Anushtup
Forever who’s in my thoughts, she
Alas is indifferent to me,
And for someone else longs,
Whose heart elsewhere belongs,
And that someone in turn loves me!
Fie to such devious love indeed,
Scorn to my love’s lover,
And his love, scorn to her,
To Eros, to ways of Cupid,
And oh, shame to me so stupid.
_____________________
Translation | | love
Poet’s Note: Bhartruhari was a poet king in central India in the seventh century CE, who when disillusioned in love renounced kingdom and became an ascetic. Neeti Shatakam, a compilation of hundred verses on moral values was written by him along with Shringar Shatakam on romance, and Vairagya Shatakam on dispassion and renunciation. This verse is taken from Neeti Shatakam.
Yam chintayami satatam mayi sa virakta
Sa api anyam icchanti janam sah janah anya-saktah |
Asmat krte cha pari-shushyati kachid anya
Dhik tam cha tam cha madanam cha imam cha mam cha || 1 || Metre: Vasantatilaka
The opposite of life
is death
The polar opposite of eternal health
is terminal disease,
with unease perhaps lying/truthing
in-between timelessness
and untimely demise
So too,
my opposite of steady compassion
may be your unsettling dispassion
Elation v deflation
of all these oppositional answers above
as clear
as unclear appositional questings
below.
What is my opposite of suicide?
Self promotion?
Ego inflation?
Having all my consuming needs
fully answered?
Or
maybe some uneasy questing
timeless mind
and spacious body
in-between healthy Now
And death-defying
death-denying
death-defining
death-despairing
death-despoiling
AnthroLove Here
Remains part of EarthLife There
whenever tomorrow comes
Now?
As Me curiously questioning
feels like our lonelier half
of We not yet
finally answering?
What could appositionally rebalance
death's final answering Earth-climate
and life's open questioning Anthro-culture?
What is the opposite of lively ruminations
and deadly ideations?
What lies contentious truths contenting,
In-between EarthBody's discommunication
desecrating death
and AnthroMind's sacred communion life?
Recapturing moments, as if gazing out of a broken glass window.
Distorted and blurry from all the tears, the hurt, the sorrow.
Lost in nostalgia,
Plagued with visions of your laugh, your love, your smile.
And all the arguments we had, now seem so juvenile.
My mother, you was, you were, and always will be.
Your love, your compassion, your efforts, are forever etched within me.
The pain of your absence lingers,
No relief despite my prayers.
My beating heart is out of rhythm,
Left struggling to find the snare.
Counting the seconds,
to minutes,
dragging the hour of the day.
Asking God daily, why did He take you away?
Leaving me shattered and broken, unsure of where the pieces belong.
Faintly, hearing whispers, encouraging me to remain strong.
As a child, I stayed hidden under your wings,
Protected and safe, nothing could harm me.
But now I’m afraid, alone, and in fear of everything.
Yearning for comfort, I seek the love only a mother can bring.
I feel God’s dispassion for my dreary circumstance.
My cries left unheard, as if there’s no relevance.
My body has needs just as I have mine
but since I live in it, I oft indulge,
yet watchful that my head and heart align,
lest wayward ego shows its ugly bulge.
Oh hermit, note these secrets I divulge,
revealed out of sense of deep compassion,
that it’s best to cultivate dispassion
because if we don’t we are sure to fall,
so though voice of truth is not in fashion,
only when we’re mindful do we stand tall.
Three sister winds,
Ephemeral progeny,
Spawned by the sun's relentless
But passionless heat,
And the earth's inexorable
Grinding rotation:
Sirocco dances across the vast emptiness of the Sahara;
Mistral roams over the rolling plains and briny lagoons
Of the French Camargue;
Santa Ana, mistress of the paradoxical
Lush aridity of Southern California.
Solitary nomads these three siblings,
Never meeting,
Rarely resting,
Always appearing unannounced,
Creating with cold dispassion,
Then leaving in their wake,
Their own ephemeral progeny:
Summits and trenches,
Hills and valleys,
Crags and craters.
Sad reminders of their brief visits
And lonely passing.
Continually shifting,
Eternally sifting,
Maternally treasuring,
Methodically measuring,
As if carefully counting each precious grain
In the sands of time.
Does a rose bush bring forth cacti? Do tulips bloom bluebells?
Do grapes appear on Clematis vines? Figs on Banyan trees?
The instinct of creative blossoming, in each creature dwells
There's a clash between soft cells. Yet, the life breath brings in peace.
Is any human born good? Is any human born bad?
Humanness, like flowerness or fruitness, in all, abides
With treasures of goodness and evil, each human is clad
As scorpions hide under leaves, behind virtues, sin hides.
Aren't diamond chunks from among the coal rocks culled and cleansed?
Amidst value splits, there are humans with a good conscience.
Could the thoughts, words, and deeds of a giver be recompensed?
The evil, Jesus says, doesn't fathom the omniscience?
Hearts should be, as Jesus says, like streams, filled with compassion.
God graces your passion for compassion with dispassion.
Satiny softness surrounds me as your touch
ensnares me in ardent, consuming passion
for which there is no exultation too much.
I desire no respite, escape, dispassion
as I am your unrelenting paramour
offering a safe harbor for you to moor.
Stay with me upon this sea of ecstasy
and we shall conceive our lasting legacy.
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