Featured Friday Letters

Friday Letters – Paradise

November 4, 2016
Yatisa

Friday Letters – 7

#letterstothestar in you

Dear you,

Hey you, Chethan Gowda. It was a pleasure meeting you the other day, when Bharat Divakar was bullied to perform his poetry! It was nice to watch you walk up to Bharat and show your poem, only to be bullied into performing it. Your poem blew my mind. What astonished me was that those words came from a 14 year old. Your words made me wonder.

Your poem had spaces for me to slip in to an exploration for the meaning of everything there is in our world. Space to wonder, what it is about this world that would make a 14 year old, say those words the way it was said.

And as promised on that day, here is the collaboration that has been long due. The thing I like about these collaboration is that, together we have three poems between us and individually each of us will have two poems. As much as I would love to call what I write as poems, they are far from that but words nevertheless which reciprocated to the thoughts instigated by your words.

It’s amazing how, this is the first collaboration after I wrote a few lines next to Tagore’s. I am amazed at the difference in the age between you and Tagore and how I fit in between in that time like a bridge. I hope you remember that!

Thanks Bharat for chipping in with those valuable few lines.

Paradise

Lost

Chethan

Yatisa

I escape the[your] daily class,

I slip through time
and arrive at this place,
where you can’t find me
and I am at peace.

without even leaving the room,

 Where you think I am
my big black eyes
staring into blankness.
My body still.
Frozen in time,
my spirit wanders….

to a world unknown,

I find myself
in the midst of everything,
racing with time,
exploring the expanse of the universe,
in a state of suspended disbelief,
appreciating, embracing the beauty
that is the unknown.
Unknown!

To common minds,

 Slipping into the bottom of the unimagined.
Unimaginable.
Imagination, often confused to be the unknown,
always stemming from the knowledge of knowing.
A metaphor.
An abstract.

I assume.

An abstraction of your veiled reality,
masquerading as truth.
A world of imperfections,
chasing the elusive utopian dream,
crippled only by your misplaced logic
and severed human instincts.
I run.
I run at the thought of it,
I run from here to there.

It’s a place where I am at ease,

With all the time
in all the world
to simply be. To pause.
Far away from your judging eyes,
I sore high into the clear blue sky.

with nobody but myself to please.

I wonder!
What, if?

it’s a place where I am not much affectionate nor kind.

All I can offer is passion.
Passion, to pursue all that is beautiful.
Beyond your misplaced logic,
that which is true
to the very basic instincts
of being human,
which is to be compassionate and empathetic,
when you arrive at this place, where you will.
In time.

I won’t lie to you,
this is who I am

I shall offer you the truth
of my very being
the thoughts of my free mind.
Feelings corruptible
Only by your logic.
That which is sacred to my soul.

music and peace
are the only things I preach

Music that is locked away
in the silences of the nature.
Silence is the music, how?
If you wonder, you will see;
Silence is the language of the eyes.
Time between the words,
you tell me.
Space between you and me.
The touch of your hand.
Rivers kissing the earth,
rain drops falling from the sky,
touching a bird along the way,
the cool breeze,
mountains breathe.
The darkness at the bottom of the ocean.
A flower blooming.
A seed sprouting.
That early morning sleep.
Dew drops caught in a web,
the sunrises and the sunsets.
Colours fading into darkness
and returning with light.
Stillness of the body,
peace that follows,
if only, you listen
to the music, silently.
To this wonder, I shall
surrender, unlike you;

Not any religion I[shall] keep

for naked I was born
and naked I shall be
until the day
I die.
You can teach me
all you want
I shall unlearn everything
by the end!

I respect them all and I am
fascinated by each…

For it is a wonder, how?
A few good men’s words
could change the world.
Forever!

I fail to have faith
in one at-least

As you turn them
into an institution,
separating one from the rest
offering me so little,
while I was born to have everything.
The whole wide world,
the universe!

with all this and more,
paradise is a place

 Bharat writes –

“locked away in our hearts,
keys lost as we rushed
to reach the peak;
journey a mere inconvenience
and I walk back
from the peak,
for I am looking
for the keys,
for I am looking
for the paradise,
mine and yours.”

nowhere
but in me.

 In you, that seems to be
lost.

But worry not, Chethan. I will do everything I can to make this world a better place. It’s a promise and I always keep my promises! A little later than never, later nevertheless!

Yours truly,

Liked reading this? Then you might also like to read Friday Letters – My Gratitude Where It’s Due.

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