Skip to main content

Still

I cannot be still.

Not in the motionless sense,
Rather, I talk of stillness of mind,
And calmness of heart.
So important, that contentment.
So difficult to achieve.
At least for me.

Instead, my mind scurries.
Hither and thither.
Rooting out old fears,
Revelling in stale thoughts.
Leaving me uneasy, disturbed
And totally, spent.

What is it about the night
And the stillness of the dark
That makes me so?
Is it that the blackness
Forms a shroud around me?
Then, unfinished tasks, unresolved issues
Become insistent companions.

I cannot silence these unheard voices.
I cannot make my freewheeling thoughts
Settle.
But perhaps, I can learn, slowly
And painfully,
To live with my rights and my wrongs.
My good and my bad.

And then, maybe just maybe,
I can learn to still my unquiet self.




Comments

edison thomas said…
... ahh, the disquiet!!! Nice
Hahahah, good one. Edison!

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...

Morning scenes

The wind blustery Skies grey blue A light so muted Birds are quiet too We walkers go Sidestepping Couple-dancing No touching Looking or meeting Glances…Oh no!   Masks dangling From chins Below noses Hanging from one ear Or sometimes Fitting so properly Covering everything So no one can see Or know What we’re really like.   Runners running Soundlessly Iron determination Seeping through So much so   That dogs being walked Know they cannot Wag tails Or even Bark a greeting.   Two men Creating content One breaking into Hair flipping, body popping Dance Faithful friend filming In fits and starts As a security guard Sips his chai Utterly bemused.

A confession

So you voted? Wow. Did you click a selfie with your inked finger prominent? Wonderful. Well, as for me, I have a secret that's been giving me heartburn. I didn't vote. I didn't get my voter ID on time, you see. So I have not been on Facebook with my voting selfie. And each time someone puts up a post saying "If you don't vote, you don't have the moral right to talk about corruption or lazy corporators or crib about how your city/state/the country is run", my heart sinks just a little more. Because truly, I don't think I am a bad person. I do not believe I no longer have any moral authority to call myself a 'citizen; of this country. At the most, I am guilty of being lazy--because I did not get my voter ID on time. On the contrary, I think I am an involved citizen. I religiously segregate my waste, separating dry from wet--and then I deliver the bags to the dry waste collection centre. When I see a creature in distress--street dog/animal/b...