Endless Journeys

Dying has no end and living has no end
The road to nowhere never has to bend
There is no heart but only a soul
There is no end but only a goal
A star that we sight but once a while
The distance, my friend, is always a mile.

Why do you yearn so soon for my earth
Your womb is no cell but a beautiful birth
For often you dream and perchance you dance
Sometimes a smile and sometimes a glance
A journey we walk now clutching a hand
Across these transient mounds of sand.

The World Has Finally Stopped

I heard the world has finally stopped.
And I wonder why.

Is it something we did
Or some secret we hid
Or that gooey sticky stream of blood
That ruined our backyard last week?
Such a rapidly spinning thing
No forewarning, not a ring
And now it’s stopped.
Like my darling little watch.
Like my blingy thingy watch with diamonds in it
Now hard and frozen, no light to shine
Oh, that’s because the lights have also gone
Searching for the missing dawn I wonder why.

Is it something we never spoke about
Some lingering, packed up, shameful doubt
Like those shredded limbs we suddenly saw

On our beautiful lawns last week?
Questions for you, questions for me
Questions that’ll never let us be
People in a world that’s finally stopped
Where we lived too long for free.

Still As Rain

The stillness of this rain
Rides its torrential deluge
A sheet of frosted glass
Set against furious skies
An inexplicable tranquility
That disowns itself
Time after time after time.

On these wild and misty moors
A hermit threads the beads of time
Silent in his great agitation
Like the vast and soundless cosmos
Hurtling past its margins.
The stillness of this rain
Time after time after time.

Musings on Love and Life

Who grieve tonight they grieve for love
Who laugh they laugh for life
Who dream tonight they think of how
They walk through peace and strife.

Who talk tonight they talk of love
Who sing they sing to dance
No seeds, no fields to till and plough
Stark the bareness stands.

Who fly tonight they fly for love
Who soar for freedom soar
The eagle always kills the dove
Yet they always look for more

Parting and Death

Parting leaves an invisible residue
In the thinning glass of life
Always forward, and always too few
Friend, concubine or wife.

Death is better at playing this game
The glass just chips away
So without a wisp of teary shame
You can go all numb and grey.

Excerpted with permission from Restless Lives: Poems, Harish Bhat, Penguin India.