In this life and the next
Let me hold your hands
Clasp them into secrecy
Or for the world to see
Let me smell fresh mown grass
In the warmth of your breath
Wet my fingers in the salt of your sweat
Mingle with you, flesh and blood
Over fears and woes
Of stolen nightmares
Let me shield your sleep
In an inky black shroud of peace
Like innocent children
On a journey of celestial bliss
Treading with bare feet
Step on the clouds
And drench me in soft, murmuring rain
And take the flying leap
Into insanity

And I’ll promise you the
Fire of my soul
The fragrance of my thoughts..
And the fabric of my life.

As far as my eyes would go,
I see your eternity-
Curled up like a cozy cat
In the depths of my brain;
I wonder what lies beneath my skin
tinkling like a clear brook..
When I look at our yard in April,
at the cherry trees..
In me rises a well as deep as nothingness
When you look at me
In utter silence I sing
the joyous ode to insanity.

I like a thousand blossoms
That bloom upon my hands
Or the hymns of misty mountains
Or of naked trysts
When my ogres and demons
Lied down in eternal sleep
In such times your voice
Coaxed me to tranquility
And took me to calm seas..
Lest I cling to my wretched beliefs.

Never better than today have I realised the meaning of the acronym PIGS- Poor International Graduate Students. The outside temperature is 9 degrees FAHRENHEIT,it's snowing freaking crazy and I have to walk in this snow to the lab to run a PCR!!!!!!!!!

SHUCKS! Really!

Some times I think the biggest toll that life has taken on me is to have silenced me effectively. There used to be a time, when I didn't have to grope for words.I don't know why it happened or when it happened or how it happened.It just did. These days I can hear and see phrases and words.. but as soon as I sit down to write them down.. they leave, and they leave me so utterly empty and in despair. This dumbness is soothing so to think but it's eating into me. What's happening to me?

Just another day.

For a thousand kisses
That runs through the core
I won’t forget reality, now,
Waves wash me away
A favor no less no more;
And I cringe and flutter
No stones left to turn
Oh the love and the pain
And ashes fill the urn.
And the darkness keeps on seeping
And the cold under the door
Creeps up and up the walls,
As lying on the floor
I listen to the phoenix
And the demons in a chorus
Calling me to doom
It fills up my ears
As blankness fills the room…
And no I am not slipping
I am not weeping
It all ends here.

Transcendent

I love the word “serendipity”. Its charm lies in its unexpectedness. It was a routine morning today and I was preparing for my usual morning run. Due to time constraint I let go of my customary route by the river and without much foresight entered the nearby cemetery for the run. I have walked by this cemetery countless times, due to its location just adjacent to my house. However, this was my first close encounter with it. It’s a very large place sprawled over almost 200 acres of land with more than fourteen miles of intersecting roads. As I jogged through one of the roads the first thing that struck me was the silence of the place. Silence reigned the air, with occasional rustling leaves only accentuating it. Trees stood tall all over the place, shading the ones that lied beneath. Fallen leaves covered the ground, and the graves. As a biologist it was very easy to note some of those trees are rare and of immense conservational value. Knowing that this whole area bears remnants of the glacial age, it was easy to recognize deep ravines, winding eskers, stubby hills and kettles. It is an exquisitely beautiful area, just considering the natural assets of the place. The area is also a virtual treasure trove of funerary art and myriad symbolism. There are mausoleums dug deep into hillsides, in stone and bronze are soaring Egyptian obelisks, miniature Greek temples, winged angels of mercy, draped urns and broken columns, Gothic towers, and sculptures of everything from Christian saints to favorite pet dogs. Together these sing a saga of immortal hope looking out to the heavens. However, none of the above really prompted me to write this piece, actually.

As I ran in the refreshing morning air, names rushed past me. “Brown”, “Morrison”, “Anthony”, “Beloved father”, “Dear mother”, “Trabinsky”, “Edgewood”, “Schmidt”.. an endless stream of names, countless relations. Gradually I felt like I was passing a thousand different lives all intersecting at one final crossing. To think that each one of these graves were a real living person with her or his own different story, his joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, all converging at this common ground of eternal coexistence! Although the logical deduction is nothing spectacular, the impact of this realization was so forceful, that all of a sudden I had come to a complete stop. I felt I was standing inside a Pandora’s Box of silent memories, which were trying to reach out to me, the only breach being that of life and death. At that point I felt like the lone mortal in Stevenson’s poem “The Listeners” who tried in vain to communicate with a host of spectral denizens in a lone castle amidst a forest. Some of the graves spoke of a heroic death in a war, some of loss, some only said names of the person who lied beneath it. Some had a tree planted besides the grave, and it seemed that the person lived on in the tree, nourished by his own remains. So many conflicting emotions were flitting across my mind, as I slowly walked back towards the gate. The brittleness and infallibility of life at the same time, for example. No matter what they did in their live, the mortal remains of the men and women lie here, but yet, in each of the graves something of them is left behind. No one would ever know their stories except a few, but the graves are hushed hints of a past that might held the living human in it. I do not consider myself to be a religious person, and spiritual only when it comes to science. That has been my way of seeking god, always, because in studying the science of life, I have always felt a nondescript force that brings about synchrony that is essential to life, amidst a non favorable environment. It is strange to think that one of my life’s first spiritual revelations happen in a necropolis and not in a church or a temple. This is why I write this piece. I dedicate it to a third of a million people who rest in that cemetery, who brought me closest to God in a summer morning, than I have ever been in life. May their souls rest in eternity, and peace.

In eternity I traveled....

Through the crinkled brown parchments of memories

Through the psychedelic lights of the future..

Through the present and through the flowing river

I have sailed.

Sealed in my lips is the name of my betrothed.

Locked in me a smile unleashed

Basked in the Sun

Drenched in rain

Oh I have seen light again!

I hear the phoenix sing

I hear the piper play

I hear the rustle of wings

I hear the endless hymns of sagacity..

I have a bucket of fresh air ‘neath my lair

I have a sky full of water in a corner,

And the moon shines down my home

every night..

I have sailed into endlessness..