When I will find not a companion
Someone to lean on,
A shoulder to cry upon,
I shall marry a tree.
It will give me shelter;
The leaves will be my clothes.
In the summer,
It will keep me from the heat.
I shall drink its sap to quench my thirst.
In winter,
Its leave will cover me.
It will keep me safe from harm...
Its boughs shall be my house
And near the top,
When I shall sit
be able to see
Far and wide, the countryside
And the ocean too.
When I talk, it will listen to me
And patiently.
When I sleep, it will sing to me
The breeze's lullaby.
I will talk to it in whispers
The way it would talk to me.
When I am old and dying
I will come down and lay on the ground
I will sleep in its bed
And be a part of it.
And when I find that tree
I will certainly name it thee.
(2000)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Epitaph
Every day you grow dearer and dearer to me
It's crazy!
You are going far away, every day.
Wherever you fly,
Take care of your heart.
How will we take care of this,
Bird of Spring,
My illness and your departure?
Over the blue mountains,
and above the Golden Tower
I search,
Second, third: sadness,
Thunder and rain.
How happily the candle of life burns in you!
How happily it shines.
I want to stop writing to tell you
The words I should say:
How I love you,
Endlessly, Wordlessly, Selflessly.
Oh God!
What will become of us, of you?
My jewel,
My flowers in spring,
My water in summer.
You are my daily light:
Moonlight, fire, dawn and dusk.
Firefly and all.
You are the Light of my eyes
(2000)
It's crazy!
You are going far away, every day.
Wherever you fly,
Take care of your heart.
How will we take care of this,
Bird of Spring,
My illness and your departure?
Over the blue mountains,
and above the Golden Tower
I search,
Second, third: sadness,
Thunder and rain.
How happily the candle of life burns in you!
How happily it shines.
I want to stop writing to tell you
The words I should say:
How I love you,
Endlessly, Wordlessly, Selflessly.
Oh God!
What will become of us, of you?
My jewel,
My flowers in spring,
My water in summer.
You are my daily light:
Moonlight, fire, dawn and dusk.
Firefly and all.
You are the Light of my eyes
(2000)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Alif
I might love but I'm not beholden to it anymore. I can't apologize for what I feel. How do I know that God loves me? I just have to keep on hoping and believing. Perhaps I don't even care. Perhaps I just want to love Him in the best possible way.
Perhaps I have moved beyond men & women and just want to look at mankind.
Do I need what I gave away freely? Was love not given with an open heart? When you give, aren't you supposed to forget? Why would you keep a tab on feelings? How can anybody?
I am just looking into myself and finding myself happy without being sorry that I loved or for whatever I gave. I love but it doesn't matter who or what.
It just is.
I just am. Alif.
Some couplets by Bulleh Shah from a song by Sayein Zahoor & Noori
Parh parh ilam te fazil hoya
Wei kade apne aap noun parhya nayein
Bhaj bhaj warrna aen mandar maseeti
Wei kade mann apne wiche warrya nayein
(Learning all that knowledge has made you wise
Oh but you never have the time to read yourself
You run entering your temple and mosque
Oh but you have never entered your heart)
Larna roz shaitan de naal
Wei kade nafs apne naal larya nayein
Bulleh Shah asmani udd diyan phharro nayein
Je jeira ghar bheitya onoun phharrya nayein
(Quarrelling with the devil every day
Oh but you never fought your ego
Bulleh Shah stop trying to catch the ones that fly in the sky
You never caught the one who sits at home)
Basein karyoo yaar
Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar
(Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Ikoo Alaf tere darkar
Haq!
Basein karyoo yaar
Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar
(You only need one Alif (the first letter of the Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew and probably Aramaic?) and Urdu languages)
Haq! (righteousness/right)
Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Allah!
Sayeinyan!
(Allah!
Lord!)
Nein mein jana jogi de naal
(I want to go with the jogi (wandering ascetic))
Jo na jane haq ki takat
Rabb na de vei oss ko himmat
(He who doesn't know the power of right
God does not give him strength)
Hum mann ke darya mein doobay
Kaisi nayya kya manjhdhar
(I have drowned in the river of my heart
Who needs a boat, (getting lost) midstream does not scare me)
Haq!
(Right/Righteousness)
Bas karein ho yaar
Ilmoun bas karein ho yaar
(Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Allah!
Sayeinyan!
(Allah!
Lord!)
Perhaps I have moved beyond men & women and just want to look at mankind.
Do I need what I gave away freely? Was love not given with an open heart? When you give, aren't you supposed to forget? Why would you keep a tab on feelings? How can anybody?
I am just looking into myself and finding myself happy without being sorry that I loved or for whatever I gave. I love but it doesn't matter who or what.
It just is.
I just am. Alif.
Some couplets by Bulleh Shah from a song by Sayein Zahoor & Noori
Parh parh ilam te fazil hoya
Wei kade apne aap noun parhya nayein
Bhaj bhaj warrna aen mandar maseeti
Wei kade mann apne wiche warrya nayein
(Learning all that knowledge has made you wise
Oh but you never have the time to read yourself
You run entering your temple and mosque
Oh but you have never entered your heart)
Larna roz shaitan de naal
Wei kade nafs apne naal larya nayein
Bulleh Shah asmani udd diyan phharro nayein
Je jeira ghar bheitya onoun phharrya nayein
(Quarrelling with the devil every day
Oh but you never fought your ego
Bulleh Shah stop trying to catch the ones that fly in the sky
You never caught the one who sits at home)
Basein karyoo yaar
Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar
(Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Ikoo Alaf tere darkar
Haq!
Basein karyoo yaar
Ilmoun basein karein oh yaar
(You only need one Alif (the first letter of the Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew and probably Aramaic?) and Urdu languages)
Haq! (righteousness/right)
Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Allah!
Sayeinyan!
(Allah!
Lord!)
Nein mein jana jogi de naal
(I want to go with the jogi (wandering ascetic))
Jo na jane haq ki takat
Rabb na de vei oss ko himmat
(He who doesn't know the power of right
God does not give him strength)
Hum mann ke darya mein doobay
Kaisi nayya kya manjhdhar
(I have drowned in the river of my heart
Who needs a boat, (getting lost) midstream does not scare me)
Haq!
(Right/Righteousness)
Bas karein ho yaar
Ilmoun bas karein ho yaar
(Stop it my friend
Stop this (so-called) learning my friend)
Allah!
Sayeinyan!
(Allah!
Lord!)
Living with COPD
Life is such a joke sometimes that you have to laugh it off. One has to live and breathe and do everything in this short little time.
I was having an okay time in life, not too good and not too bad and then something happened and the plane went down and something broke inside me or maybe it was broken already and I just felt the broken edges trying to pierce my insides. May it be any reason, you or shall we call it love or happenstance or rose by any other name etc but I stopped living. It was like being suspended in time but with the time passing.
Seeing my x rays for the first time with those lungs like maps meant nothing to me until the doctor explained that mine are like that of a 40 year old smoker. Innocent that I was, I said, but I don't smoke. It's not smoking, it's something else. You have to be more careful than the rest. I didn't give a damn because I suppose when you're in your early 20s, everything is bullshit and you're so high on life and friends and university and colors and trees and driving fast and listening to all sorts of new music and experimenting with that music and trying to discover yourself and God and forgiving and forgetting that you just don't give a damn about a couple of badly scarred 40 year old lungs inside the body of a 20 year old.
I'd been away from the internet for long and away from everything and I started thinking, why has it stopped me from living life. Just because you weren't there, why did I stop breathing. I couldn't breathe anyway.
The realization hit me that it was almost (less than) a decade ago that I was given that black & white plastic picture of my tattery breathing sacks and I wondered if my lungs were 50 years old now. So I remembered that I started smoking to kill myself and I smoked on and off without any conviction of addiction (because other than you, I never got addicted to anyone or anything) and it hit me that now my lungs must be older than just 50.
A person like me is not scared of death, just what they're taking to the next world and what they're leaving in this one. I have known it for more than a year now that I don't have much time and I didn't want to give myself the false sympathy nor take it from anyone about 'making it' but something happened and I wanted to live!
I think it was the hope that you'll come back to me. I kept that flame alive in my scarred body parts. Young old body parts. I used to cry when someone young died. I never wanted anyone to cry when I was gone (the delusion that someone might remember me long enough... ah!).
Then the flame left and I thought what am I? Am I an empty shell? But I wasn't. I have too many scars, killing scars, pustulating scars, itching scars. I have things to show for my journey, shorter though it may be than others but what does it matter.
So at first I faked a laugh. It hurt my lungs. It really did. I coughed. It even made me huff and puff. I couldn't breathe or maybe I was used to the feeling of not breathing so much that I just didn't want to anymore.
But when I actually heard my laughter, I remembered how I used to laugh. Even I used to love my laughter. I, who never much loved anything about myself, used to love my laugh and enjoy it. I was encouraged and I laughed again and again and I smiled to myself. So what if you don't love me anymore and what if you wouldn't care if I died? You won't even know it until I was gone for many many months. Perhaps many many years.
That stopped the laughter but I wasn't going to give up. I wanted to capture that essence. The crazy essence. People still tell me I look like I'm 16. I heard it in the gym that I didn't look a day younger than 18. Someone didn't want to talk to me when I came back from England because they thought I was just 14. It used to make me feel worse not because it couldn't make me happy that everyone thought I was so young but that no one could see how old my heart and lungs had become and how I had let everything wither me so much.
No more. I realized that I don't want to be old. It's been my goal since I was a kid. To die young. I wanted to be the literal member of the 27 club. How Gothic! No more. I love nature. I miss it. I miss that I was lying among pines and listening to the sea.
I miss writing poetry that was based on other people's emotions. I miss writing at all. I miss looking and seeing. I miss talking to my friends. I'm afraid that I've lost them to this old young self. I miss drawing and painting and playing. I miss being quiet, calm and collected. I know that I might not regain any of that but I want to get that essence back. I know it's somewhere inside me, lost though it may be.
That essence is needed for the happy survival. To not pretend anymore. To not wait anymore for someone or something that won't ever arrive. To just be happy in the small things. To listen to my happy self. To leave the darkness behind or to meet it when the right time is there.
I still get sad. I weep more now but I don't hate myself for it. I let the sadness roll off me and like waves leaving me clean and pure. I cried that I was just an innocent. I wept that I was just a baby when I met you. I didn't know anything. Someone had been cruel to me when I was a child but I still didn't understand it. I forgive! I forgive!
I must learn to forgive myself too. The blood of the innocent is on my hands as much as anyone else. I suppose more so on mine than any others. I love myself too.
Now when I laugh, I mean it. It's not like the days haven't been tough but just to hear my lungs making an effort to do something nice is good. When I come home, I wash the stains of everyday. I don't let them ruin my being. I want that when I cease to be, I don't have to carry them beyond this world.
Scars are okay but stains are not.
Gut nicht!
I was having an okay time in life, not too good and not too bad and then something happened and the plane went down and something broke inside me or maybe it was broken already and I just felt the broken edges trying to pierce my insides. May it be any reason, you or shall we call it love or happenstance or rose by any other name etc but I stopped living. It was like being suspended in time but with the time passing.
Seeing my x rays for the first time with those lungs like maps meant nothing to me until the doctor explained that mine are like that of a 40 year old smoker. Innocent that I was, I said, but I don't smoke. It's not smoking, it's something else. You have to be more careful than the rest. I didn't give a damn because I suppose when you're in your early 20s, everything is bullshit and you're so high on life and friends and university and colors and trees and driving fast and listening to all sorts of new music and experimenting with that music and trying to discover yourself and God and forgiving and forgetting that you just don't give a damn about a couple of badly scarred 40 year old lungs inside the body of a 20 year old.
I'd been away from the internet for long and away from everything and I started thinking, why has it stopped me from living life. Just because you weren't there, why did I stop breathing. I couldn't breathe anyway.
The realization hit me that it was almost (less than) a decade ago that I was given that black & white plastic picture of my tattery breathing sacks and I wondered if my lungs were 50 years old now. So I remembered that I started smoking to kill myself and I smoked on and off without any conviction of addiction (because other than you, I never got addicted to anyone or anything) and it hit me that now my lungs must be older than just 50.
A person like me is not scared of death, just what they're taking to the next world and what they're leaving in this one. I have known it for more than a year now that I don't have much time and I didn't want to give myself the false sympathy nor take it from anyone about 'making it' but something happened and I wanted to live!
I think it was the hope that you'll come back to me. I kept that flame alive in my scarred body parts. Young old body parts. I used to cry when someone young died. I never wanted anyone to cry when I was gone (the delusion that someone might remember me long enough... ah!).
Then the flame left and I thought what am I? Am I an empty shell? But I wasn't. I have too many scars, killing scars, pustulating scars, itching scars. I have things to show for my journey, shorter though it may be than others but what does it matter.
So at first I faked a laugh. It hurt my lungs. It really did. I coughed. It even made me huff and puff. I couldn't breathe or maybe I was used to the feeling of not breathing so much that I just didn't want to anymore.
But when I actually heard my laughter, I remembered how I used to laugh. Even I used to love my laughter. I, who never much loved anything about myself, used to love my laugh and enjoy it. I was encouraged and I laughed again and again and I smiled to myself. So what if you don't love me anymore and what if you wouldn't care if I died? You won't even know it until I was gone for many many months. Perhaps many many years.
That stopped the laughter but I wasn't going to give up. I wanted to capture that essence. The crazy essence. People still tell me I look like I'm 16. I heard it in the gym that I didn't look a day younger than 18. Someone didn't want to talk to me when I came back from England because they thought I was just 14. It used to make me feel worse not because it couldn't make me happy that everyone thought I was so young but that no one could see how old my heart and lungs had become and how I had let everything wither me so much.
No more. I realized that I don't want to be old. It's been my goal since I was a kid. To die young. I wanted to be the literal member of the 27 club. How Gothic! No more. I love nature. I miss it. I miss that I was lying among pines and listening to the sea.
I miss writing poetry that was based on other people's emotions. I miss writing at all. I miss looking and seeing. I miss talking to my friends. I'm afraid that I've lost them to this old young self. I miss drawing and painting and playing. I miss being quiet, calm and collected. I know that I might not regain any of that but I want to get that essence back. I know it's somewhere inside me, lost though it may be.
That essence is needed for the happy survival. To not pretend anymore. To not wait anymore for someone or something that won't ever arrive. To just be happy in the small things. To listen to my happy self. To leave the darkness behind or to meet it when the right time is there.
I still get sad. I weep more now but I don't hate myself for it. I let the sadness roll off me and like waves leaving me clean and pure. I cried that I was just an innocent. I wept that I was just a baby when I met you. I didn't know anything. Someone had been cruel to me when I was a child but I still didn't understand it. I forgive! I forgive!
I must learn to forgive myself too. The blood of the innocent is on my hands as much as anyone else. I suppose more so on mine than any others. I love myself too.
Now when I laugh, I mean it. It's not like the days haven't been tough but just to hear my lungs making an effort to do something nice is good. When I come home, I wash the stains of everyday. I don't let them ruin my being. I want that when I cease to be, I don't have to carry them beyond this world.
Scars are okay but stains are not.
Gut nicht!
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