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Madathil Nair Poem
I have seen you flash by
Amidst thick green foliage and swaying pines
Like a distant silver dream
On receding skyline
But was never satisfied
For a close encounter I craved
I did then go up
The Space Needle in Seattle
Hoping to have a clear view
Of your snow-clad balding pate
That thought profound thoughts
Against mortal blues of the empty sky
But, alas, you remained
Elusive to sight
Hiding behind shifting clouds
Yesterday, I drove over a hundred miles
Climbed my way to Sunrise Point
Hoping for a close tete-a-tete
You played truant again
I saw a blank
Of nothingness, void
A grey screen of clouds and mist
As snow-flakes flew around
The board before me read
You were somewhere there
Amidst mighty peaks
Right before my unseeing eyes
Doesn't matter Rainier
You are there, I know for sure
Like the Himalayan peaks
I haven't seen
And yet am charmed by their beauty
On calendars, picture-cards
Inherent philosophy
Their height and grandeur speak
Better luck next time
Rainier, you are a teacher
I have now seen
Lofty nothingness, void
Against which I have all the peaks
Of the world that speak
Of Truth that belongs not to things
But to an evanescent dream
That the Lord, whoever He is
Conjures up for stupid minds
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2022
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Madathil Nair Poem
A road trip through the Pacific West,
from Seattle along Sequim,
Ocean Shore, Seaside,
all the way to San Francisco.
The Pacific roared beside.
Frequent signs warned of Tsunami hazard.
While a warning at a trinket shop
showed an evacuation route,
an ice cream ad promised a tsunami of delight.
People thronged the beaches en route,
least worried, all in mirth;
a gigantic tide was last on their list.
At Ocean Shore, a man and woman stood in tight embrace,
the lady sobbing without respite,
a personal tsunami on the heave,
wreaking havoc on their aching psyche.
The Pacific just looked on beside.
Humanity seemed a cluster of ants
on the rim of a tea cup left under a tap
savouring their last greedy grabs,
weeping over what is not.
The tap looks down upon.
Yet, away, unknown to them
two superpowers were locked
in an eye-ball confrontation
over things of least real concern
portending a nuclear conflagration.
Lo, the Pacific stands for peace
as her name really means,
while men portend real nemesis,
their own apocalypse.
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2022
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Madathil Nair Poem
Last night I watched the movie “Nang Nak”;
the hero returns home after a war,
lives with the ghosts of his wife and child,
unaware they had perished while he was afar.
And then, when I turned around,
I saw only ghosts abound,
non-real beings, planets, stars,
all that my universe bore,
and, at last, my body and thoughts,
dancing apparitions in swirls,
frenzied dervishes in whirls.
I prayed at the feet of the Buddha,
bewildered by spectral samsara.
Did He smile at last
or a non-real thought that was?
Or does it matter at all?
That I know is proof after all
That I exist to validate
real, unreal, non-real,
like a glow that reveals,
self-iridescence concealed.
And here I lie now erased
of a body, mind and the seen,
a void that has everything
sans forms and names,
and yet the fullest thing,
the Buddha in everything.
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2022
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Madathil Nair Poem
The world sings Your praise
Says You were born in a stable
To where a bright star showed the way
To wanderers of the desert
They sing carols and make new ones
Year after year every Christmas
All that is nice and sweet to hear
But Lord I have another reason
To sing out aloud
The greatness of Yours
I am no Christian by birth
Neither have I lent my ears
To missionaries who preach
And invite the world to their feuding folds
My country had a leader
Whom Your life influenced
And he put what he knew of You into practice
To free us from perilous bondage
Made us truly recognize
How You chimed with our ancient nascence
He is the Father Of Our Nation
None else in the world I think
Had the strong conviction he had
That Your teachings can be PRACTISED
My country therefore owes a lot
To You, Jesus Christ,
And to You we truly belong
Oh, guide us Divine Light
And illumine the world
Let us celebrate Christmas
To usher in an era of peace
In which the whole creation can rejoice
Unbound, without fetters and barriers
In the bosom of true Christ Consciousness
Undifferentiated Oneness
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
Hovering over a flashing sign
At the portal to our oil town
Chirped the fluttering sparrow
To the tiny desert flower
That had just offered
Its first golden smile
To the rising sun of spring:
“Eh, ye! What are these guys upto
Erecting these boards all around
That change colours and scenes
Like lights on a festival ground? ”
The flower smiled again,
This time philosophically:
“My flying friend of the sky,
Haven’t you yet heard
HSE, HSE, HSE!*
“Having all these years,
Burnt and smoked earth and air,
Men choked of breath,
Have now seen some sense
And know for sure
The dance of death awaits
If they don’t change their traits.”
“Nature, the teacher,
Has taught them the lesson
That they should have known
From day one – but Alas!
They had chosen
The peril of undoing
Their own God-given home.”
“Isn’t it strange that it took
A hole in the polar skies,
Countless clogged windpipes,
Scarred lungs and hearts,
Scary seas of slick and waste,
Smoky dark afternoons,
Gasping towns asthmatic
For them to understand
The simple truth that the gift of God,
This ‘blue marble’ of the cosmos
Is a treasure to be preserved,
Be whatever the cost? ”
“Listen friend, they have now begun,
Singing a chorus in unison,
“HSE, HSE, HSE! ”
In utter repentance and in hope,
Determined to salvage
The oases senselessly ravaged”.
“Young men and women
Who put up these signs
Have a vision of what their home
Should be like, unlike the ones
Who rushed before them
Defiling nature’s sacred realms
In wanton, hasty sacrilege.”
“HSE, HSE, HSE! ”
Echoed the sparrow,
As it soared in the brilliant sun,
Buoyed by the February wind,
Hope infused by the flower,
On to a eucalyptus branch
That smelt health and well-being.
A bemused alley cat
That sat under the tree
Wondered what all this joy could be.
Her whiskers rayed out
Untold happiness
Deep from a sunny heart
As she mewed with the wind
“HSE, HSE, HSE! ”.
“HSE, HSE! ” sang the kids
Their voice filled with mirth.
“HSE, HSE” sang the winds
As they hissed and kissed the trees.
“HSE, HSE” sang the heart
As it lay on God’s own lap,
Dreaming a world clean and green
Where all His children lived and preened
Letting every creature live
In peace, endowed with healthy breath,
Safe and secure without care
“HSE, HSE, HSE! ”
________________
*HSE = Health, Safety and Environment
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
A moon-lit day
End of Fall
The Sun an unseen presence
Far down south-west
Behind some silver cloud
Maples showering gold
On a lengthening walkway
Lovely as the Milky Way
A young couple in embrace
On a lonely bench
Hush, hush, silent speech
Tip-toe vagrant breeze
A teenage cutie
In Halloween fancy
Of rainbow hues
Floats her way
Did the trees around
Send her down
With their sliding leaves?
Time in lethargy
The skies in brood
Life in slow motion
Fowl in meditation
Perched on the bank
Their eyes lost in the sheen
Of the placid pond
Is this an evening
Or a dream?
Rub your eyes
Pinch your thighs
This can never be
Anything but a dream
"Wake you dreamer"
"Into what?
Another dream?
A dream within a dream?
And then a dream within a dream within a dream….? "
Isn't life an evening of Fall
Unending within a dream within a dream……?
No one wakes here
A dream-some nowhere
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
Petroglyphs scattered
All over Hawaii
Carved on black volcanic rocks
Mysterious they are
Stoke human curiosity
Unendingly
Human and other forms
Numbers and writings
Carved by the island’s ancient natives
Long before the Whites entered the scene
No one can gauge
What they truly meant
We are left with guesses and conjectures
Lots of touristic balderdash
Me, a frail, wavering human frame
At late seventies
Walked across the blackness
On cracked volcanic lava rocks
Defying winds and sun
The past bloomed
In different forms
Carved on solidified lava
A human form here
Elsewhere a human thought
In an unknown alphabet
Or a secret number or sign
Splendorous indeed
Are the stone writings
Showcased across the island
A tourist’s paradise
They dragged me back to my teenage
When I climbed a rocky peak
Close to my village home
Laboured hard on its head
And chiselled my name
Alongside my heartthrob’s
My name and hers
Set apart by a heart
Pierced by an arrow
In the middle
Sweet, bleeding, passionate
Perhaps, the monsoon rains,
Winds and sunshine
Have undone my petroglyph
What else can I expect
In more than sixty years
Of my residence elsewhere
Away from my native nest
How much I wish
I could again climb that peak
To view my sweetest script
On its unthinking pate
Alas! Am now close to eighty
Can’t climb that height
To view it again
And sing to my past youthful glory
Stars and planets!
Look at it please
Read it aloud to me
The song of my youth
Engraved on the rock
The whole sky will join in
In full-throated revelry
The universe has no choice
Glory all the way petroglyphs
Wherever you are
On the surface of this earth!
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
My grandson asked me:
“What blessing would you seek
this morning?”
I was washing the dishes
of the previous night
without any wishes.
I sought, therefore, to continue as I was.
“Wash the dishes?” he laughed,
asked me to bend,
placed his hand on my head
and solemnly said, “So be it”.
What else could a man
nearing eighty want,
in his frail diabetic frame,
still able to move about
and watch beautiful sunsets?
Isn’t life great
with the hills outside
basking in ethereal sunshine?
Isn’t it a blessing
to listen to birds
singing melodious strains?
Stroke the plants and talk to them,
walk in rain, listen to streams,
all for free, look at the sky
leaning on a wayside tree,
knowing everything here
is a big ‘given’, well provided,
when wants are short
and the ego is laid to rest.
And who then worries
about the last breath
when the corporeal mass
that heaves sans rest
is a boon ‘given’
that just comes by
without asking
on an unending journey?
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
A flower in Hawaii
blooms in halves -
half on the mounts
half on the shores.
Naupaka is its celebrated name -
we hear there was a princess of the same name
long long ago
and she fell head over heels
in love with a commoner -
a prohibited misdeed for royal ones.
The lovers went from pillar to post
to find a way out
from the quandary they were in.
They yearned to win
the heart of everyone
and live in peace as one
together for several eons.
Alas! That was not to be!
although a priest asked them to pray
at a mountain temple
to find if the Divine cared,
which with all their heart they did
without any visible aid.
Lost of hope they embraced in tears,
the princess tore the flower on her hair
into two halves and gave
one piece to her love;
she said in tears:
“Take it to the mounts my dear
and I shall return to those who least care
at the shaky shores
far down there
with the other half on my hair”.
A heart-broken naupaka plant
witnessed the event;
bleeding inside she decided
to always blossom in halves thence.
This may be a legend made up
to explain a natural wonder
of a flower blossoming in halves
but the world goes lachrymose;
humanity then sings in tears
for lovers torn asunder
on the globe everywhere.
And the winds of Hawaii
breathe this love story
day in and day out
in unceasing strains
and the stars sure do listen
as do the swaying palms.
Oh, visitor to the island, cry!
And say a prayer,
oponopono* for sure,
the Lord will listen
and lessen the pain
• “Forgive me please, I am sorry, I love you, Thank you” – that is the oponopono prayer of Hawaii to the Lord. It takes care wherever you are.
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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Madathil Nair Poem
The other day
I lay for an echo of my heart
The technician scanned my chest and sides
I could hear my heart pant aloud
Oh boy! Was that a chugging train,
a distant wail, water gurgling,
or a rhythmic rub inside an empty tub?
The guy sure was at frantic speed
wailing all the while
Thank the Lord
He has made sure
we never hear
the perturbations
of this friend of ours
labouring inside each of us
all twenty-four hours
Copyright © Madathil Nair | Year Posted 2024
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