So far and yet so near

So far are you and yet so near

What makes you such a dear?

I was quite calm and placid

You presence stirred a storm wild

I hid with my eyes closed

Until your storm had passed

In me a feeling new it left

A deep longing was I of your presence bereft

I decided to go in your quest

Many dangers were there I was forewarned

And yet I continue to tread in the forest

Sleepless, without hunger and thirst

However it seems a journey endless

How I wish it was painless

Barefoot I walk on thorns of disappointment

However, towards you I never feel resentment

Sometimes I get tired and sit down to rest

But the sweet breeze of your presence comes to haunt

And onwards towards your palace I continue

I seek it in all places old and new

Only to find it inside my chest

And you enthroned in my heart

Lifeless entities?

Let me be frank to admit that this post has been inspired by Dr.Hofstadter's "I am a strange loop". As I went through the first few pages of the book, I was literally amazed at what he had to say (As always) . The below lines are but a crude representation of Hofstadter's deep thoughts and if I may say so, a glimpse into his soul :) (You will understand this sentence as you read further)

I was looking at the many books and trying to decide what to buy. I was in the mood to buy a classic. My eyes naturally fell on Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". On the cover was a picture of Napoleon Bonaparte riding his horse. Immediately images of the Russian steppes during the winter of 1812 flooded my mind. The mighty French army enters city after city to find it bare, the food grains burned and find absolutely no shelter from the harsh winter. Bereft of food, and facing the hostile weather, as the French troops advance, marauding Cossack warriors ambush them time and again. It was a cowardly but brilliant strategy by Czar Alexander. He neither had the guts, nor the brilliance to face Napoleon openly in battle. I bought the book, only never to find the time to read it. But I remember the incident all the time. Is the book, or even it's front cover, or shall we say, the picture of Napoleon a lifeless entity? However, one look at it, and we are reminded of the Person's life, the struggles, the happy and sad moments. A shattered piece of the persons life lies embedded there, and when we look upon it, we can literally feel what it was like to be that person. What were the emotions that he went through?

When we similarly read the work itself, we get to relive the feelings, the emotions that a common Russian went through, the hardships and the struggles during the invasion by France from the eyes of a Chronicler.

When we see this, one wonders, what indeed is lifeless? Take for instance the facebook profile of a person. Etched there in his wall are his opinions, his expressions, what goes on in his mind, his pictures. If I put a gloomy song on facebook, you know that I am feeling depressed at the moment. If I put a picture of myself, all smiling, you know I am happy. When you see me thus, you for a moment can feel the emotions and probably a bit of what's going on through my mind. No wonder the big brother (CIA) and the FBI are said to monitor what goes on in facebook, since it is so easy to spot a radical religious bigot in there.

When you look at all this, the shattered pieces of our soul are all around us in the form of our pictures, our social networking profiles, our poems or music.

Look for instance, at the book containing the musical notes of Beethoven's 9th. It is but just a piece of paper, two dimensional, all white with black dots on it. The strange shapes of the musical notes seem irrelevant, however when given to the hands of an expert musician, one can get a glimpse into the soul of Beethoven. One can see pieces of his shattered soul, splashed all over those very pages.

This makes me wonder, this thing called me, is in so many places and not just in me :) . It is indeed the most unreal "real" thing in our lives.

In my consciousness

In my consciousness do you exist

In my mind does your beauty persist

My mind was a room with blank walls

Your presence filled it with your murals

The sky was once filled with stars

Your presence painted there your frescoes

I was sober and awake to the world perceived

Until the wine of your presence flooded

I got drunk by the wine and was intoxicated

Wilfully in the river of your wine I submerged

Yet another victim your wine claimed

In your prison was I bound and chained

You are none other than my beloved

Thy divine waters of love do send

Let them flood across time and space

And drown me in the wine of your presence

2 beloveds

A lover am I of 2 beloveds
They are my two eye beads

The earthly beloved's presence is always ephemeral
The heavenly one's presence is always eternal

The earthly one I rarely see
The heavenly one is always with me

The earthly one is far away
The heavenly one I see in every way

The earthly one knows not my love
The heavenly one is the source of my love

The earthly one has shut herself somewhere
The heavenly one welcomes me everywhere

The earthly gives me a lot of pain
The heavenly one pours blissful waters of rain

The earthly one does not even at me glance
The heavenly one always puts me in a trance

Both are my passion
Both are my obsession

When I submerge in their love
They merge into one another

I drown in this ocean of love
And all that remains is the beloved

The cemetery of desires

I stood all numb without feeling

Several graves spread out before me

A freshly dug grave was there

A coffin contained for you my desire

A futile desire it had died out

By the disease of unfulfilled deep longing

People felt sorry and came to offer

Their condolences as they lowered

The coffin of the desire and

Buried it in the cemetery of desires

None could understand what I went through

Tears that flowed were the symptom of my broken heart

A monument placed on it read

Here lies a desire that loved

And longed so much that it died

With the intense longing unfulfilled.

Prison of your longing

A prisoner am I in the

Prison of your longing

My feet are chained

By the fear of losing you

I was a free once upon a time

But your beauty imprisoned me

Without your beautiful presence

The dungeon seems dark as night

And when you appear for a brief moment

I forget the prison,myself and only

You remain for like an ocean

you submerge everything in the universe

You are verily my universe

And your beauty is boundless

And when you go away, you

leave me drenched with

The pure water of your memory

I find myself all drenched

And bound in the prison

of your longing, for

Only you have the key

to liberate me from

This tortuous life

And let me submerge

Into the ocean of your heart

And blissfully drown in it

Falcon

I was perched on the tree very still

Until you flew past me in the night sky

Like a shooting star in the night sky

And I stood transfixed for all of a sudden

There was only your beautiful form

Unaware was I of the tree,my body or my self

My robes were colorless,

You painted them with your color

My love for you makes me soar

Like a falcon in the sky of your longing

The fair wind of the memories of your beauty

Pushes me onward towards your city

Your city is an impregnable fortress

Your soldiers try to drive me away

By showering the sky with arrows

Hurt I go back to the woods and

Nurse my wounds, only to see your

Beautiful form streak across the sky again

And I forget the wounds, the body and myself

All that remains is but your beauty

And I again take off, unaware of

Sun,rain or wind, I reach near your city

I try to reach you city again and again

I find the doors of your palace closed every time

The day you open the windows of your palace

I will enter inside never to come out

For their remains not me, nor

The palace nor the woods

But then there exists only you

In you presence I forget all and myself