breath is a two fold path
from you -- to the world
from the world -- to you

This relationship is a journey
from a point A you call birth
to a point B you call death

You can divide and subdivide
add and multiply
but
A thud regulates it
it regulates the thud
This music will go all along your life
till the day the song ends
the coughs, the wheezing, the apnees
and all the inbetweens to catch up

Fast pace -- when joy or angered
slow pace --  when sad or depressed

Five thousand years ago
Patanjali pondered
wondering
what the hell to make out of it
the prana, the pranavayu, he said..Pranayama
thats it -- the sutra
the harnessing key
vital body,vital breath
ida, pingala, sushama
tantra mantra yantra

niyama

he locked it, held it , released it
he sucked it, blew it , whistled it
he stood like a tree, a cow, a lion
stable like a chair and a table

in eighty four ways he twisted, tangled, untangled

placed mindfulness to meditate inbetween

And thats how he died
teaching the system

in -- we live
out-- we die
in -- we live
out-- we die
sohum, soohummm, soooo hummmmm
some bearded fart made it an art
millions others a religion
and Baba Ramdev made mostly the money.
oh what else , Patanjali.

Ode to Francis of Assisi

Hello skinny brother, hello belly full of the sacred, hello to you who wants to eat the impossible,
What a joy to see you.

Ah, Francis,
less courageous people like me can only admire you and your madness --Madness that kept you sane.
Madness -- your quickest ladder to heaven.

All your life you waited
 for god.

You waited so much that sometimes you wondered if he really saw you.

Your stubborness paid.

You hugged that cross for so long
that he could'nt take it away.

so he let you keep it.

You kept it so close to you , it got  fused into your body,
The wood, and the nails, grew out of your palms and feet

You  became a walking cross, nailed, twenty four hours a day to it .

the birds came and sat on your shoulders.
wondering what you were.

Those who followed you
followed you,
but
you followed your solitude,
the only place you were convinced
where God would meet you.


i look at you brother Francis,

i've been looking at you for years,
your ordinariness embracing life
beyond, every possible human being's understanding


i climbed  Mount Subasio this morning
hoping to bump into you.

just to see you pass.

Then a blue fog got in

i knew you were coming.

and You were there in those clump of trees
just where the sky had opened ,
the sun poured all its light,
i did'nt see anything except those beams of light
that was all i ever got to see of you -- just beams of light.

i never came to you to
learn about God

i came to you to watch
how silence talked to you
till every part of you oozed with light.

Then as you spoke the light kept spilling -- the stigmata

the five wounds,

five words filled you with heavenly fire
that only the birds, the animals, the forest , the sun and moon understood

the five words were the same as your five wounds
you said your words  over and over
till your torments rendered to peace

five doors through which your soul looked out

five canticles from which the doves flew into the moonlight

and then, the starlight fell into your palms
and your heart howled like a wolf to God


You became God's wolf.


sleeplessly you wandered in your solitude.


So,
God gave you
a stone

named Assisi

upon which
anyone who sat
could see how beautiful you were.

The daily passing light was your tattered gown

from your nakedness stood out the sun.
from your whispers -- the olive grooves.

You whispered all your life
to God

i hear you

mumbling,
" we're not erudites but god's paupers
 and to Poverty our sister we surrender..."

God gave Peter a rock
and ,
 " go and build my temple " , he said.

But you built yours in the open air,  right there
Where God came to sit in your heart.

a poem about writing

This pure land
is not yours , not mine.
this nourrishing hush gets into you.

let the world in
through your eyes
with only silence to drink

Others sees your stillness
having no idea of what going on inside

What came from the night and touched you
altered the stars
from their embryonic web

now that you see what was'nt there before

The birds in the poem i was about to write
flew away
into the glittering sky

if not for their idiotic chirping
i would'nt have noticed anything at all.

That's how i stepped into the poem

Without the slightest idea of what
would happen
or whom i'd meet

now that i was in the poem i realised
Noone had trodden here except for these birds


The poem was
thick -- with silence
White -- with three days of snow

the silence and whiteness
filled most of the poem

It might have turned oppressive
had'nt it  been for
the old maple tree
by the
frozen river
with just one leaf.

One leaf -- glimmering Orange bright
as though the sun had left behind - a piece of itself

And it lit the whole poem.

i hurried closer to the river
it was getting dark in the poem
The wind, getting really cold.

i followed my glance
and saw
the edge of the river
which
was'nt really the end of the poem

A slight drizzle began to wet the poem
so i ran quickly through its snowy fields

A gust of wind blew

blew the leaf out of the poem
if not i'd still have been in the poem.

i tried getting back
to look once more at the maple tree

but the poem had vanished


The late evening came in

i stood up to shut my bedroom window
when i heard a crunch beneath my feet.

i stepped on a leaf
it was brown.

Why jerusalem
Why can't you see through this once and for all
That no child, no woman, no man must die for so little

if centuries of hatred is tenacely put into the banks of your memories
Does'nt it frighten you of what might sprout out  from the embryons of your unborn generation.

Now that you've doing what Hitler did to you.
With what lips do you talk to God each morning
with what hands do you break  loaves for your children
how do you preach your wisdom


This dust wet with blood, trenched with tears,
i look at these charred date palms and olive grooves ....
is it a face
Is it your own God's face weeping