That which never dies

I'm reading a lot of Urdu poetry these days courtesy acquaintances and new-found friends and I can not begin to express my absolute love for the drama, the wonder, the reality captured in those words. I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to post one that I'm in love with. Thank you Iqbal:

Teri ishq ki intahaa chahataa hoon/ I want the depths of your love
Meri saadhagi dekh kya chahataa hoon/ See my simplicity, see what I want

Sitam ho ki ho vadaa-e-behijabi/I don't care if you maltreat me or promise to unveil your beauty
Koi baat sabr-aazamaa chahataa hoon/ I want something unbearable to test my fortitude

Ye jannat mubarak ho zaahidon ko/Let the God-fearing be dwelling in heaven
Ki main aapka saamana chahataa hoon/ I just want to be face to face with you

Koi dam ka mehmaan hoon ai ahal-e-mahfil/I'm only here for a few moments, like a gust
Chirag-e-sahaar hoon bhuja chahataa hoon/Like morning star I will fade and vanish in a few moments

Bhari bazm mein raaz ki baat keh di/ I disclosed the secret in public
Bada be-adaab hoon, sazaa chahataa hoon/I should be punished for being so rude.

For this I feel grateful.

I'm also tempted to post another poem here. It's by Neruda and my friend sent it to me the other day after one of our long conversations about life and living and going crazy. It's so beautiful.

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and I lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips :
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off: it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Waking from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood-
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

I read it and read it and re-read it. And started falling in love with the forest. To be lost in it is perhaps all that I desire now from life. For this I shall not apologize. I'll ask for the grace to encounter my twigs and maybe I'll encounter little drops of sun too. Or better yet, maybe I'll be to the twigs the light that it needs.

After all, fireworks are wonderful, but they can't compare to the sun.

Mysteries

There are secrets within me. Because I am aware, I try and unravel them. I try and unravel me, I try and unravel the world, I try and unravel people. The elusiveness of secrets fascinates me. I want to know more. I want to know everything.

But my mind alone can not will everything into reality. My mind can not engage with these secrets. No, it is not enough, it never was, it never will be. My mind is the most useless tool in this regard.

For these secrets need all of me. In effect, they need the parts most sacred to me. The sacred ones are the most sensitive ones, yet they're not strong enough.

And the only way of strengthening is an absolute complete shattering. The most sensitive must be thrown into all the turmoil there is out in this universe. Only then perhaps will the secrets become remotely familiar.