Touch

 An old old poem I wrote. Have you ever seen a person who is so fragile that you think they might break at the slightest touch but when you look in their eyes, you see a resilience beyond words?

Something in them touches you to the very core because they are curious but shy, gentle but sturdy, they know it all but appear confused. They are an essence that is fleeting and intriguing. An idea that is contradicting but in sync.

          Touch

This is my touch

Like Poison, Like Love

This is my Touch

Delicate vine on a dry wall

Lightly;

Now here now gone

A shiver from tip to toe

Flickering but alive

Like locks of hair across my face

Interfering and invisible

Dandelions caught in the wind,

Butterfly wings, humming bird's kiss

Eager and shy.

Like a sleepy child;

Confused. Now reaching out then curling back

bewitched and scared

angry and forgiving.

Like Poison Like Love

Now Here Now Gone

This is My touch

-----------Megha(09/07/05)

MOTHERHOOD

This I believe. Motherhood is a big step. It should be by choice and not force or chance.

Many women risk their lives to end a pregnancy that is unintended or dangerous . It is indeed a difficult decision to make. I believe that these women aren't doing it just because it is a convenient thing to do but they are doing it due to pressing life circumstances.
In 2001, there were 6.4 million pregnancies in the US. Of which 3.1 million were unintended. 44% of the unintended pregnancies ended in a live birth while 42% ended in an abortion.[1] That would mean that if abortion were illegal, about 1.3 million women in the US would have no choice in the matter of their own reproductive rights. It would also mean that women and mothers getting illegal abortions would be criminalized and possibly be sent to jail. This website asks anti-abortion activists the question, " If abortion is illegal, what should the penalty be?"

While it is safe to say that most women these days use atleast one method of contraception, some of those methods are not very effective. Suffice it to say that while we do need to improve accessibility and generate awareness about these methods, it does not make much sense to take away the right of a woman to decide whether she is capable of sustaining another life.

A lot of pro-life activists say that abortion is the taking of a life but refuse to realize that no woman would go through the process unless she had absolutely thought about what she was doing.

This I believe. Abortion, for many, is a difficult choice to make. It should however remain.....a choice.

Dorothy Fadiman was taken to the ER because of a botched illegal abortion after her doctor refused to provide her with a safe abortion.

In 1991 she created an award winning trilogy "From the Back-Alleys to the Supreme Court and Beyond" that covers the abortion rights issue beginning from the time when it was illegal through the struggle for legalizing it to the current situation and the fight to keep it legal.
You can watch the important extracts of the trilogy (27 min) or the whole thing (about 2 1/2 hrs) here .
If you are pro-choice this documentary will help deepen your understanding of why the protection of this choice is imortant.
If you are pro-life, please take 30 min to listen to the other side of the story and understand what women go through.

----Megha (08/23/08)

Vande Mataram!
Happy Independence Day everybody
---Megha

Children. Why do we have them? I'm talking about biological children and I'm looking beyond the basic instinct to procreate. Is there a reason?
How true are the following statements?
We have kids because they are a source of happiness.
I want a child because I want a little person that is in my own likeness.
It makes me happy to see something I've helped "create" that has my eyes, nose, hair etc.
Because having a child feels like a miracle.

However, are those reasons enough? That is not to say that children do not make us happy, they absolutely do. But how is it that in a materially oriented society where we are so unemotional with everything/body else but when it comes to babies, suddenly we talk about miracles?

Also, are those the REAL reasons? So many couples do it because "they are supposed to". So many people do it for what I think are the wrong reasons. So many people do it even though they might not be able to provide for their expanding families.


One day, during a conversation with a colleague of mine, I told him that I did not want any children of my own. I wanted to adopt. He called me selfish and went on to lecture me about my debt to society and to my parents. In his view, the reason for my existence was because my parents made a choice and so, being indebted to them I must repay this debt by having my very own biological children. Well what about those children that need parents. I really don't feel entitled to bring another soul into this realm unless those that are already here get good homes and families!

"Well, in that case," he said, "you should have one biological child and one adopted child." WTF! Is that really how society thinks?! And what if I want only one child? A lot of people I talked to also believe that the first child should be biological and the second adopted. Seriously, are we discriminating against children that aren't made from our very own DNA?!

In my mind, very biological child I have means a lost opportunity to parent an adopted child....and that according to society is selfish.

Hinduism believes that by reproducing, we allow our ancestors to be reborn in human form and give them another chance at salvation (or whatever we're supposed to be doing). And if we (or more precisely the men) don't do what we're (the men are) supposed to do, then upon dying, our souls enter the realm of "Put" from where there is no release (i.e. the soul is in some deep shit!). This seems more of a scare tactic to me. I wonder if an impotent man or woman was looked down upon back in those times? I wonder if this “you must have children” thing was done only so a man could prove that there was nothing lacking in him. And if there really was something lacking, then there were alternate routes provided to help with the issue.

And everytime I ask a question, I get provided the means to answer it my self. As I was working on the few paragraphs I've written, I got a little dose of baby time from everywhere. The first was a labmate of mine who just a few weeks ago had a baby and brought her in to work so every one could meet her. I noticed the interaction between parents and child (even though she was in VERY deep sleep). The parents were both tired but happy. Recently someone else I know had a baby and of course the parents are happy about it.
Then I got invited by a couple to a barbeque. They had 5 children. The oldest was probably somewhere in the mid to upper teens and the youngest was probably around 6. As a big family there was lots of work to do but everyone was lending a hand. It was a relaxed and happy atmosphere. Were any of those children adopted? I don't know, but I don't think so. Would they be just as happy if the children weren’t their own? I’d say you’d have to be a really narrow minded and small hearted person incapable of true love to not be happy.

Why this reluctance with giving a child the love and affection it needs? Why label an orphan as someone else’s mistake and hence not our responsibility? Are we so shallow that we somehow think that our children are superior because they are our own flesh and blood? Why do so many people believe that if you adopt a child, then there is something "wrong" with you? Are we using our children to prove something?

Shame on us for submitting to the ridiculousness of society.
----Megha

Started this over a week ago. Added some stuff last week and then finished it on a flight to Los Angeles. My brother got married to a beautiful person. I wish them fulfilment out of life and beyond and each other.
And although this poem had nothing to do with them since it was triggered by completely different circumstances... I dedicate the last two lines to them

Questioning Faith

Back to square one
But it feels like
The end back
Where we started
It's the beginning of the circle
Except
It becomes
Smaller.. each time

So hard to live
In the moment
When it lays
Waste
In the Past and Future
I see
The broken person

The fury and tears
And the frustration
With Love

Anger at insensitivity
And selfishness
One sin sent to right
another

I think
I am
Better
Alone
Not unlike God

But unable to give
And forgive

I think
I have
Lived
Much in love

But as tears go unseen
My love
I your hands
My heart unheard
Dies a silent Death

That brings us to
The End
Where Love
Begins

Outside of it
We all but
Die
So what glory is there
In breaking tethers
When Love is
All we are.


----Megha (06/26/08)

The two strongest negative feelings we as humans have are of anger and betrayal. I hated these and so chose to not feel them and in the process cut out all emotions from my mind. There was no other way. And so I never loved. For a long long time. Not even once. To open my heart to love meant to open it to anger, hate and jealousy also. So I built a wall around it and left it there. But my heart, it wished to be alive.

Wishing For a Heart

I’m cold. Shivering.
Wishing for a heart.
Wishing that with all that I’ve given, that I could give some more.
Wishing for once that I would not think.
That for once this blade that cut me would make me bleed.
This skin that was red and white that trembled and burned, yet never bled.
Wishing the fragrance in my hair that was stolen be stolen again.
Like felines one agile the other powerful, predators on the prowl,
Wishing that they might be prey to one another again.
Silent; this cold heart, yet it screams.
This mind, unthinking, yet calculating.
What trap have I set for myself?
That the more I free myself, the deeper it ensnares me.
And still…..I wish.
For a heart.

--------Megha(October 2005)

When I say "wishing for a heart" I don't mean for another persons love, but rather I wish to have a heart myself. Hope it makes sense.

I wanted to write something on my childhood. It was spent with very few toys. The only toy I really had ( and infact still have) was a pink bear. As a solitary kind of kid. Even though I had a tonne of friends, I loved to spend time alone. Just looking at stuff. I think my parents preferred that I spend time outside instead of inside. And they never got angry if I came home covered in mud as long as I had fun.
I spent a lot of time on trees. The unwritten rule between my brother and I was that if there was a tree, we had to climb it. He was and still is better at it than I am...although getting down is a whole another issue. Another rule was that if the tree bore fruit (mangoes, guavas, jackfruit) then they had to be stolen. I was never allowed to accompany him to these expeditions since they usually occurred at 4 or 5 AM. He never got caught!!! Although I think he has been chased but never identified. If I had a house with a yard with trees, I would absolutely allow the neighbourhood kids to steal the fruit...it's a part of childhood. I might even fake chase them. :-)
I also spent a lot of time with insects; caterpillars, ants, butterflies, dragonflies, spider. We hung out with scorpions and snakes even, although not in very close proximity. Lots of different kinds of birds, squirrels, mongooses were common. Yeah it was wild! Occasionally I'd dig out some dirt in the backyard and wet it with enough water to make it mouldable like clay and make stuff out of it. Of course I had to break it down and clean up the mess..but playdoh wasn't on my list of things to buy. And no , I didn't get sick. I think it helped my immunity.
And just as soon as it started, it was all gone. Sigh! I wish I was a child again.

Easily Distracted

The dancing wind,
Turning everything
Inside-out, Upside-down
My umbrella and the sound of rain
Wet, drenched
To the soul infused
And on a branch perched
A king on a throne

Caterpillar walking, my finger tickled
Spiders weaving webs, waiting, sparkling
Ants working, a string, single-minded
Of black or red
Leaves burning, falling, burning
The feel of mud on little hands
And the scent of burnt grass

Running after the remains
Of a dandelion,
Mesmerized
By hovering humming birds
Or dazzling dragonflies
Spellbound by butterflies
A pebble in a well

Squirrels chased or a cat stalked
Up in the branches
With the sooty crow we flew
A breath taken, A veil dropped
A heartbeat in silence

The quiet sounds we heard as children
The symphony.
It ends before it even starts
Bewitched by the world
Above and below
Engrossed.
Distracted
By Childhood

Prayer

Every time we pray, we ask. For strength or happiness or health or success. Sometimes our asking is directed toward an idol in front of us. We go into a temple or church and kneel and bow our heads. For we feel that whatever this idol symbolizes, controls things that are out of our very human control.
We give our god a form by looking at him/her through messengers or deities that imbibe the powers that we do not ( or we think we do not) hold so that he/she becomes more comprehensible to our limited(or so we think) intellect!
And then some of us decide that if we can't even understand what god is, we shouldn't assign a form to that god. The form only gets in they way of what we really want. I agree with that

But then what do we want from life in the end? Really. How long will our material acquisitions keep us happy? And aren't we perhaps being greedy by continuously asking? And when our wishes are fulfilled, how do we give back to god? Burn incense, donate our time or money to charitable causes?
Maybe god sees it as a good thing to do, but has anyone asked god what he/she really wants?
I mean supposedly there is an entire universe to take care of, does he/she need any help with that besides our little charitable attempts?
Hindu's believe that the divine is responsible for creation, sustenance and destruction. It's a cycle that gets repeated over and over again. And the whole point of that is...? God knows...I sure don't!
I guess we are really giving a hand with the destruction part for now though.

All I know is that I was born and now I have to live until I die. If some good comes out of my life...that's good. And if I die uncared for or unloved or unrecognised...that's just fine.
Will I be happy? I think so
Does it really matter? No
Will any one really care? Not really besides me!
Feel free to share your opinion.
In the meanwhile here is a Sikh prayer (with translation)that I really really really like, because it doesn't ask for anything. These are the opening lines to the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
In my mind they are beautiful and no matter how many times I repeat it, when I get to the end, I want to repeat it again and again and again (sometimes my brain is like a gramophone stuck on a record). If you're wondering whether I'm Sikh, I'm not and it doesn't matter. Just like idols can get in the way of what is really important, many times the same is true of religion.

Mool Mantar

Ik Onkaar

There is only one God

Sat Naam

His Name is Truth

Karta Purkh

He is the Creator

Nir Bhau

He is without fear

Nir Vair

He is without hate

Akaal Moorat

He is beyond time (Immortal)

Ajooni

He is beyond birth and death

Saibhang

He is self-existent

Gur Parsaad

He is realised by the Guru's grace.

Jap

Recite this prayer

Aad Sach

He existed in the beginning and was the Truth

Jugad Sach

He has been existing through the ages as the Truth

Haibhi Sach

Even now he Is . The truth

Nanak ho se bhi sach

Nanak says that this Truth shall forever be.

Sochai soch na hovayi je sochi lakhvaar.

Cleansing the body cannot make the mind clean.

Chupai chup na hovayi je laye rahaa livtaar.

The mind cannot be silenced by remaining silence continuously.

Bhukheya bhukh na utari je banna puriya bhaar.

Greed cannot be ended by being given an abundance of wealth.

Sehas syanpaa lakh hohe ta ik na chalai naal.

Even if ones cleverness was to become infinite, this intelligence and shrewdness is not the way to God.

Kiv sacheyara hoyiyai kiv koode tuttai paal.

How can one be true and pure enough to be on the path to God?

Hukam rajaee challnaa Nanak likheya naal.

By leading life according to God's will.

PS: I've added a link to YouTube for the song from the movie Rang de Basanti. If you missed it in the text, here it is again:

This little poem feels more like prose to me. It just doesn't feel good enough to me. But I've been working on it since September 2005. I give up. This is it and I'm not really happy with it.

Sometimes

Sometimes. It hurts.
Like plucking a flower or
Trapping a butterfly.
Words come before thought
To look at a crowd and see no smile.
To see people laugh
only so they don't cry
When people speak
Only to feel alive

A friendly hand seems a trap
Every good deed only an opportunity
It hurts.
When friendship is nurtured by the material
And love is guided by the cynical.
When it feels selfish to give
Or impolite to help.

Scaling mountains for happiness
But never content.
Arrogant, we build our lives
Like castles in the air.
Ignorant enough to believe
They will hold
Through all Time.
But to know that this will not last
That the spirit is caught
In so much that shall be lost
But that glorious loss is the goal.
It hurts
Sometimes that we will never understand.
----Megha (09/25/05)

This, once again was on my old blog on yahoo:

"Gratitude"

The sweetest thing anyone ever said to me was,”Be careful. You are a nice person and I don’t want to see you get hurt.” (And no, he wasn't drunk; at least not yet.)

Sitting here, alone in my apartment, jazz streaming through my windows from the club situated a block away, I wonder. In a society where almost every lavish word feels hollow and is usually just payback for assistance rendered what does it take to earn such a complement? Something so sincere and pure and without expectation. So giving in its nature. It touched me.

Someone thinks I’m nice. I am flattered.

NO. no.

I’m grateful

Grateful, that in your company I've learned much; that you chose to share your joys and sorrows and were more than willing to listen to mine; and that indeed though we might be people of few words, that we still understand. For all your help, I’m grateful.

And yes, for the priceless advice you have always given me; dear friend like the one above, I shall forever be grateful.

----------Megha
I'm happy today because I have a friend

Well that was two and a half years ago. And that friend (when he wasn't getting on my nerves) taught me a lot more since then. Then he graduated and got his PhD, then he did an awesome job teaching an O Chem class. In the meanwhile he got a postdoc...and today he left. We hugged, I cried. I usually don't cry at goodbyes. He means that much (inspite of being irritating :-))

My overworked head has too many words in it. And playing with words has kept me occupied through many a boring times. Funnily the only time I ever get bored is if I have to talk.
Any way so I came up with some thing...I feel like it's still incomplete, but I started it 2 weeks ago and 4 lines in, I had nothing more to say. Today I stumbled over those lines in my forgotten notes somewhere and added a few more lines...and I don't think I'm done. Yet I'm done with it for now.
That's why I'm calling it infinity, because I'm not sure which verse it should start with and where it should end..and if it should end at all

Here goes:

Infinity

Am I trapped in the whims of the stars?
Between thin lines on palms am I?
A child of the earth born to live
Bound by dates and numbers,
Mere mortal am I?
Timeless life has no time for me then?
What meaning has it for my troubles or joys?

In deep waters,
What storm will brew
If this droplet seeks
Becomes a cloud?
The sea will come and go in waves.
And with its ebbs and flows,
We add some and we take some
Or we think we do
And still it remains as is, as was
And as ever will be.

If I was born
Out of eternity
Then was I ever really born?
And when was it that I lived?
Before or after infinity?
And when I was
An animal perhaps...where then were
The lines on my palms?
And when the stars
Were not born yet
Whose whims made my destiny?
What makes me...me
If I am or if I ever was?
---Megha (03/20/08)

Gazals

I LOVE gazals. The first time I was really intrigued by a gazal was when I heard Jagjit Singh sing "Kal chaudhavin ki raat thi". I was struck by the sheer helplessness of the writer with respect to the beauty of his beloved. Of course what followed was listening to my dad's collection of tapes by the usual Gulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan.
Sung in the more popular style with a chorus that is repeated after every couplet to keep the audience going and the couplets sung a tad faster than normal and the language tended to be more hindi than urdu.

Then one day my father put on a CD that I think he bought. The artiste was Begum Akhtar. I was stunned. What was she doing? She hardly had a chorus to repeat and wait she took her time with the verses. She knew her power lay in the delivery of the essential couplet and she NEVER rushed through. What drew me in further was that I couldn't understand a lot of the language she used.
Urdu sounds sooooo beautiful, especially when you don't understand it. Makes you want to say words like, uzr, ibtela or ahzaan.

Anyway so finally a few days ago I decided that it was time I understood 100% of what the Begum was trying to say to me. One of my favourite gazals sung by her is called "Unki berukhi mein bhi" . So I hit the urdu-english dictionary to figure what was going on. Heres what I found

उनकी बेरुखी में भी-(Ameer)

उन कि बेरुखी में भी, इल्तेफात शामिल है
आज कल मेरी हालत, देखने के काबिल है

Even in his indifference, there is mercy (Iltefaat actually also means kindness and friendship, so I'm not sure but I think the word mercy fits best here)
My situation these days is worth seeing

क़त्ल हो तो मेरा सा, मौत हो तो मेरी सी
मेरे सोग्वारों में, आज मीरा कातिल है

If one were to be murdered it should be like me, if one should die it should be like me
For amongst my mourners sits my murderer

मुज्तिर्ब हैं मौजें क्यूं, उठ रहे हैं तूफ़ान क्यों
क्या किसी सफीनी को, आरजू -- ऐ - साहिल है

Why are the waves (ecstasy) impatient? Why are storms brewing?
Is there a boat out there that desires the shore?

सिर्फ़ राह्ज़ंही से, क्यूँ अमीर * शिकवा हो
मंजिलों की राहों में राह्बर भी शामिल है

Why is Ameer- (the poet) complaining about the robbery during his travels
When in the routes to the destination the guide is also involved?

If you get a chance listen to it here

PS : This stuff doesn't translate very well into english
PPS: WTF do all my "इ's" appear after the consonant they are supposed to be attached to.

I had this on my old blog. I can't believe I didn't put it up here. I had been in the US for about 5 months when I wrote this. Not homesick, but as a daddy's girl, I had just realized how much I loved my mom. As I flew out of the nest, I never once looked back. Didn't see her anxious face. But many months later, this little ode came quite naturally.

Sleep Content

-----For my mother-----

These starry nights, are they the same that shine at home.
Tell me they twinkle the same and sing the same lullaby I hear each night.
Tell me Ma, it is the sweet music you whisper to them that rocks me in its soft melody.
Gently each night as I look up at this space and ask the Moon of its travels that day,
It tells me it has seen the place where I was born
And that it knows of the people I love
Tell me Ma that someday soon,
I will gaze at these same stars
And hear that old lullaby
My head in your lap
As I sleeep content
After many a dreamless night
--------Megha (02/05/06)

The stuff of dreams

I used to dream that I was flying. I'd take off down the secluded street that started at the end of the driveway of the house that I associate with my childhood. I could fly only as long as I believed in it and if there was even a sliver of doubt, I'd fall and break a few bones. Also for some reason I believed that I could only fly if I was a kid, the day I grew up, I would lose that power. So I kept trying to practice flying..in my dreams. Soaring above the trees feeling the high of laving gravity behind and occasionally being skeptical about flying and (hence) dropping from the sky but the trees underneath me always caught my fall.

It taught me belief. I know it's weird, but I apply it to my everyday work i.e. doing reactions. No skepticism allowed not even in my dreams about work! Mostly it works (but comes with a don't try this at home caveat). I mean things don't work just because you believe them...right?
Working in a chemistry lab has taught me however that there exists something which is the equivalent of "bad juju" called the lab gnomes or lab-mates peeing in your reaction problem ( this would of course be very difficult for a woman to do!).
And then there is nothing worse than believing in something all the time and then loosing that belief at a critical point.

After I was grown up a little, my flying dreams continued...I was however taking off in arizona near the canyons. I'd take off with great strength and be soaring and then I'd look underneath me (bad idea since I'm scared of heights) and realize I was over the canyon and loose all faith instantly with no trees underneath!
Fortunately dreams can be woken up from. It's what I'm hoping for with life.
---Megha (03/05/08)
P.S.: Maybe this says something

Destiny

The ink is red
In destiny's book
It tells us things
And we'd rather not look

Deeds to be done
Words to be said
Wonder if they will be
Just as we dread

We gain to lose
When we could lose to gain
So put our heads on ice
Let go of this vise
And this grip of belief

Will we love our Life
When She chooses to desert us
Standing at the threshold
She looks a little cautious

With all our trappings and baggage
She strips from us our pride
And she turns to the other side
And if we accept and accede
Bow down and vanish already
These things we fear
Wouldn't seem so dreary

----Megha (02/29/08)

I hate it when it takes me forever to finish a poem. I never stop thinking about it. The words keep turning in my head back and forth adjectives mixed up and I'm never sure where I'm going or when it will end. Many times I start on one topic and the words seem to take a life of their own and weave something quite different. I leaves me...dissatisfied, to say the least. The epiphany of having found something or learnt an important concept about life ( or what ever it is I'm trying to learn about), it never comes.
Ironically this is when my brain is thinking and my heart has given up.

Mindful?

Easy, Unfeeling, Dead,
Mindless
Without teacher or guide
Awareness is rare.
Yet, when I ask
I am answered and I receive
To open my heart
Be fearless
Know compassion
Oh but to keep from hurt also
Watch as it swells
In its joys and delights
And shrivels in anger and misery
How quickly this wretched mind
It barges in
And tramples what little
In my garden grew

Must this ship be tossed and turned
With every beat it begs be returned
Wishes this mind withdrew
Ashore perhaps
or into the profound and tranquil blue
----Megha (02/20/08)

I feel like a poem named "Perhaps" sounds so cliche'd. But I could not think of a better word. Also, I feel like I've heard some of the lines before. But I might just be dreaming.

So Perhaps
Perhaps it is not love I know.
For on a bed of pins,
My wounded heart you stow.
Perhaps it is not meant to be.
But I believe,
Love (Man) is beyond destiny.

So in spite of all that was,
In our own separate lives,
Separate paths we chose

So perhaps we will be lovers
Or perhaps be friends.
And perhaps, I will see you someday again.
Or maybe I will walk
Away from you today
And this will be the beginning of the end
----Megha (02/05/08)

For sorrow that lies beyond tears.

Still
I cry not for your father or brothers
For they still have your life in them
I cry in hope that you may be fulfilled.
Be happy.

Even though I may not be perfect,
Here, hold my heart and feel content

I know that souls live their own life paths.
And there is nothing I can do about yours now.
But I wish I had tried. I wish I had known.
Hold my heart now in your cold hands and
In the stillness feel the warmth.
----Megha (02/01/08)

I often wonder why most all my poems are about me. I feel selfish for thinking only about myself. But then I think...there is nothing I can write about better. When a poet writes about anything, are they not writing about how they feel. I rarely write in the second person.
Maybe because I try and feel what the other feels and write it as if I was the object on whom the life experiment was being performed....I think it fulfills me to feel another persons experience. And so I write as if that person was me...although I write a lot about myself also.

Explaining poems is on the list of my non-fun things. But I should because it makes me think more and maybe better the writing. So here goes.
Being a person with an unassuming and contented personality can have its cons. One of them is that people often think that you are not driven or dedicated or passionate about anything.
But such people often have very deep convictions about life. One of them is that they do not need to show off their love or drive for something in order to be successful. Another is that they find happiness in the more subtle realms of life....such as just being.
What good are the wants of life that drive other people (into the frenzy of life) anyway?
These are people with the blue flame....the people that look beyond life and at times its pettyness and seek to fulfill a greater vision. The person in this little poem is trying hard to understand this flame and fulfill it while it rages inside. The irony being: "But it asks for nothing, and I cannot give"

My fire

Why are you happy?

Must I answer? …..Because I am.

No, why? Truly?

......I have no answer.

Why?

Must I reason?

I am where I want to be

Why is it here that you and to be?

It is here that I want to breathe.

But… it is not what I want to be

The fire has fizzled and burned out then?

I want to be….nothing.

Of no consequence

With no reason, no cause

No beginning or end

Empty.

Is what I want to be.

Empty is where I want to be.

My fire, it has not burned out.

It lies there waiting to rage.

It lies in my nothing, in my empty shell

My blue flame, it stings and mocks me.

Because it asks for nothing.

And I cannot give.

It asks for something I may not achieve.

For I have tried but it is not enough.

And so I lay as if I am content.

As if my passion is lost and forgotten.

I am happy. I must be

-----Megha

This is when I fought with myself. I don't know much about love. And in May of 2006..I was probably absolutely puzzled by it. It pulled me in one direction when I wanted to go in another equally important direction. The dance in the end at that point was a wish to be free of this tug-o-war and to go in the second direction that I had longed for all my life. In hind sight, I believe that when truth cuts the tether that I will not struggle between the two things, instead I will see them as one and it will be like a delicate dance of the two. Here's my fight and dance.

Dance

Love is for the strong hearted and feeble minded.
And as my heart takes flight,
This miserable mind stays strong.

I cry
because I pity myself.
Not because I see
that love is better but because
I must.

Not because I believe
That I should be happy
to Live, but because
I must.

I cry,
Trapped in the conventionality of
Life
I’m expected to
Live.

I cry
Trapped but actually free
I can pack my follies
and walk out with nothing.
Cry
because I know I will not
…….not yet…not yet
I’m still bound
With each passing day
I entangle myself even more.
Some day
Truth
Will cut this tether.
It will pull the strings
Of my heart
And I will dance with abandon.

-------Megha (05/20/06)

I realized that quite a few of my poems remain in the lala land of yahoo 360. I'm going to start publishing them here.
Starting with my first poem that I actually felt like sharing with others. :)

Run Free

Run away,
From East to West,
Run towards the setting Sun
Catch it before it drowns into the ocean
Colour yourself in hues of blue and gold.
Watch, as the Sun dips itself into the inkpot of the ocean
And writes our fate in red

Defy fate, rewrite your destiny
Reach tomorrow before the light does
Believe you can and you will.

Stop Time
Bring Past and Future to the Present

Run….Run Away
Become Free from the clutches
Of Day and Night
Free from the circle of Life and Death
Independent of your destiny
Free to do as your Soul desires
Free to transcend above space and time
Free…

---Megha