Kuch bhi nahi

सरकार ने कल न्योता भेजा
कहलवा के भेजा के अकेले जाना है
न्योते में कुछ असाध्य शर्तें भी थीं
साथ में कुछ भी नहीं ले जाना है, और कुछ भी नहीं।।

अब इस कुछ भी नहीं को कहाँ ढूँढूँ  ?
क्या होता है ये कुछ भी नहीं?
और इससे भी अव्वल सवाल -
ख़ुद को कहाँ ढूँढूँ?

सरकार के न्योते के बाद
इस पर गहरा विचार किया

मैं जहाँ भी गई हूँ अब तक
मैंने अपने शरीर को  पहुँचाया है
अपने विचारों को किसी सावन के मोर की तरह
फैलाके, सजाकर ले जाती रही
अपने भावनाओं को एक गठ गठरी में बांध
अपने अस्तीत्व को वज़नदार करती रही

पर अबके, सरकार के दावत पे मैं जाऊं,
तो क्या वह पहचानेंगे मुझे?
मगर कैसे?
इन सब के बग़ैर तो
मैं कुछ भी नहीं

मैं... कुछ भी नहीं
मैं ही तो हूँ... कुछ भी नहीं
मुझे ही तो जाना हैं

सरकार का न्योता है
जाना तो पड़ेगा ही
चारा - कुछ भी नहीं

the lyricism in life

(This post I found in draft mode, almost a year it seems to have languished there. I read it, seemed to concur... still!  And so I post.)

Poetics

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiraling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper -- though
that, too -- but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.

AR Ammons

not so much looking for the shape as being available to any shape that may be... To apply this to life then, is a dear dear ambition. ( I am conscious of the irony of that! :) ) But how much courage it will take! To hold still when things unfold, not cringe or gloat or sigh with relief, but watch watch watch... because in the absolutely unprejudiced watching lies the drama's true enjoyment. 

the white mountain was blue

Back in Coimbatore after a month. Was delighted in the morning, but the evening finds me melancholic. I welcome the feeling for its depth and flavour. It suits the night sky over these sombre mountains.  I am discovering (in that stupid way humans have of discovering eternal truths as if they alone have stumbled upon them by some unearthly chance) that if one lives closely tuned to the sun one feels like the sun, sprung in the morning, full-blown in the day, meditative at dusk, restful at night, and mystic before dawn.

Last evening I was on the train, then too I found the same catch in the region below my heart, so half of the below was started then -

Kya le jata hai suraj apne saath,

Jab woh doobne lagta hai har shaam?

Abhaas hota hai ke bheetar kuch asth huaa hai

Kheechta hai kuch andar-andar

Tez aach pe chadi saanse, madhaam si hoke simatne lageen ho jaise

Ek  nishabd dhaara ban ke bah rahi ho jaise

Aur dheemi saason ke is sheetal dhaara mein umadteen hain woh saare prashn phir se

Jinke nirantar prashn-chinh se thak ke soya hun umr bhar, har raat, har raat.

Ke phir suraj uge aur phir taab se apni bhasm kar de un sawaalon ko,

Saansein phir se raftaar pakde, ke unke beech, kisi prachn-chinh kisi sawaal ka antar na ho

Jeevan ki gati aisi ho ke woh swayam uttar sa lage,

Aur lagne lagti bhi hai har roz har roz

Aur phir sooraj asth hota hain,

Aur phir har saans ke baad... ek yugantar