The end is beginning's sister

- Mahmoud Darwish , The Butterfly's Burden 

Devotions

Karna Fakeeree Tab Kya Dil Geree

- Meera Bhajan

Encounter

- Czeslaw Milosz, Bells in Winter 

Autotomy

Afterworld by Neha 

In danger, the holothurian cuts itself in two.
It abandons one self to a hungry world
and with the other self it flees.

It violently divides into doom and salvation,
retribution and reward, what has been and what will be.

An abyss appears in the middle of its body
between what instantly become two foreign shores.

Life on one shore, death on the other.
Here hope and there despair.

If there are scales, the pans don’t move.
If there is justice, this is it.

To die just as required, without excess.
To grow back just what’s needed from what’s left.

We, too, can divide ourselves, it’s true.
But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
Into flesh and poetry.

The throat on one side, laughter on the other,
quiet, quickly dying out.

Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar—
just three little words, like a flight’s three feathers.

The abyss doesn’t divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.

In memoriam Halina Poświatowska

- Wislawa Szymborska

Kufr

Badal-ta Ras-ta by Neha 

aaj assa ek duniya vechi
aaj assa ek duniya vechi
te ek deen ve aaj le aaye
gaal kufr di kitti

today we sold one world
today we sold one world
then, returned with a new faith today 
we did a blasphemous thing

supney da ek thaan udhaya
supney da ek thaan udhaya
gaj ku kapda paad le aate
umar di choli sitti
aaj assa ek duniya vechi
gaal kufr di kitti

we picked a fabric of dreams 
we picked a fabric of dreams 
tore one yard of cloth,
sewed a blouse of the ages 
today we sold one world
we did a blasphemous thing

aaj assa ambar de kaliyon
baddal di ek chhapni layi
aaj assa ambar de kaliyon
baddal di ek chhapni layi
kut chandni pitti
aaj assi ek duniya vechi
te ek deen ve aaj li aaye
gaal kufr di kitti

today, from the sky’s pitcher
we lifted the cloud cover,
today, from the sky’s pitcher
we lifted the cloud cover,
and took one gulp of moonlight
today we sold one world
we did a blasphemous thing

geeta naal chuka javange
geeta naal chuka javange
ye jo assa maut deko nu
kadi udhari litti
aaj assi ek duniya vechi
te ek deen ve aaj li aaye
gaal kufr di kitti

we will pay the price in songs
we will pay the price in songs
for this, from death - you see, 
we have taken moments on a loan 
today we sold one world
we did a blasphemous thing

main shaah te shayad tu vi
main shaah te shayad tu vi
shayad ek shaah de vich dikhlota
shayad ek nazar de nere te baitha
shayad ahsaas de ek mod pe tola
aur wo pra aitihasik samay aadi gale
main shaah te shayad tu vi

ae meri te teri ho nashi
jo duniya di aad passa bani
main di pehchan de akhar manne
tu bhi pehchan de akhar manne
te o na o aad passa di aad pustak
likhi mai shah te shayad tu vi

ae mera te tera mel si
assi pathran di sej te sute
te akhaan hooth olam pokhate
mere te tere badan de akhar manne
te unnao naal pustak anuvad kitti
rig veda di rachna te bahoot pichhu di galle
main shah te shayad tu vi

that was our tryst, yours and mine
we slept on a bed of stones
and our eyes, lips and fingertips,
became the letters of your body and mine
they then made the translation of this first book
the rig veda was compiled much later.

shayad ek shaah de rith dikhlota
shayad ek nazar te nere te baitha
shayad ahsaas de ek mod te thurla
pur pra aitihasik samay saadi ghale

- Amrita Pritam 

Famous

A very famous umbrella by Neha 

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,  
which knew it would inherit the earth  
before anybody said so.  

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds  
watching him from the birdhouse.  

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.  

The idea you carry close to your bosom  
is famous to your bosom.  

The boot is famous to the earth,  
more famous than the dress shoe,  
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it  
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.  

I want to be famous to shuffling men  
who smile while crossing streets,  
sticky children in grocery lines,  
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,  
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,  
but because it never forgot what it could do.

-  Naomi Shihab Nye 

The little ways that encourage good fortune

Watch your step by Neha 

Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life
you will be overwhelmed:
you may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life
but do not know why,
you are just lucky, and you will not move
in the little ways that encourage good fortune.

The saddest are those not right in their lives
who are acting to make things right for others:
they act only from the self--
and that self will never be right:
no luck, no help, no wisdom.

- William Stafford

What Will Remain ?

- Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly's Burden 

The Fish in the Sea Is Not Thirsty

- The Kabir Book, Ecstatic Poems of Kabir, Versions by Robert Bly 

Shaking Hands

- Sorry for your troubles, Pádraig Ó Tuama

Love After Love

The Lovejoy Columns by Neha

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott

ABC

Unknowable Pedestrian Birds by Neha 

I’ll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E’s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

- Wislawa Szymborska

एक मुलाकात

अब रात घिरने लगी - नेहा

मैं चुप शान्त और अडोल खड़ी थी
सिर्फ पास बहते समुन्द्र में तूफान था……फिर समुन्द्र को खुदा जाने
क्या ख्याल आया
उसने तूफान की एक पोटली सी बांधी
मेरे हाथों में थमाई
और हंस कर कुछ दूर हो गया

हैरान थी….
पर उसका चमत्कार ले लिया
पता था कि इस प्रकार की घटना
कभी सदियों में होती है…..

लाखों ख्याल आये
माथे में झिलमिलाये

पर खड़ी रह गयी कि उसको उठा कर
अब अपने शहर में कैसे जाऊंगी?

मेरे शहर की हर गली संकरी
मेरे शहर की हर छत नीची
मेरे शहर की हर दीवार चुगली

सोचा कि अगर तू कहीं मिले
तो समुन्द्र की तरह
इसे छाती पर रख कर
हम दो किनारों की तरह हंस सकते थे

और नीची छतों
और संकरी गलियों
के शहर में बस सकते थे….

पर सारी दोपहर तुझे ढूंढते बीती
और अपनी आग का मैंने
आप ही घूंट पिया

मैं अकेला किनारा
किनारे को गिरा दिया
और जब दिन ढलने को था
समुन्द्र का तूफान
समुन्द्र को लौटा दिया….

अब रात घिरने लगी तो तूं मिला है
तूं भी उदास, चुप, शान्त और अडोल
मैं भी उदास, चुप, शान्त और अडोल
सिर्फ- दूर बहते समुन्द्र में तूफान है…..

- अमृता प्रीतम

Charāġhoñ ko

Dhoop by Neha 

Charāġhoñ ko āñkhoñ meñ mahfūz rakhnā 

baḌī duur tak raat hī raat hogī  

Musāfir haiñ ham bhī musāfir ho tum bhī 

kisī moḌ par phir mulāqāt hogī 

- Bashir Badr 

Affirmative Action

- Pádraig Ó Tuama, readings from the book of exile

A n d i s n' t i t t r u e f o r a l l o f u s

-  Pádraig Ó Tuama, Sorry for your troubles 

Odes

Held by Neha 

1.
Of the gardens of Adonis, Lydia, I love
Most of all those fugitive roses
         That on the day they are born,
         That very day, must also die.
Eternal, for them, the light of day:
They're born when the sun is already high
         And die before Apollo's course

         Across the visible sky is run.
We too, of our lives, must make one day:
We never know, my Lydia, nor want
        To know of nights before or after
        The little while that we may last.
2.
To be great, be whole: nothing that's you
         Should you exaggerate or exclude.
In each thing, be all. Give all you are
         In the least you ever do.
The whole moon, because it rides so high,
         Is reflected in each pool.

- Ricardo Reis ( Fernando Pessoa), Translated by Edouard Roditi

Thanks

Signs by Neha

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

- W.S.Merwin, Migration: New and Selected Poems, Copper Canyon Press, 2005

Long Afternoon At The Edge Of Little Sister Pond

चलना और स्थिरता by Neha 

As for life,
I’m humbled,
I’m without words
sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these
and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen –
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort –
along with human love...

**********************

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

- Mary Oliver