Grass-Skippers

It has been a while.

The grass in the forest is still green and there are daisies growing all over it. The solemn looking trees stand tall and breathe clean. The blue sky has a dozen clouds and the sun seems hidden away. Nothing seems rushed.

There are grass-skippers–two of them. Grey, small and unhinged.

They sit on the daisies and the grass and the other weeds and then they skip away. Are they the same ones from yesterday or the day before that? Is there a way to tell them apart? Where do they skip away to? Do they know they exist? Do they know I exist?

Life experiences–do they have any other than coming to the forest and flying away? Going from one weed to another? Are they finding purpose? Maybe they are just reclusive? Or maybe, they have a purpose?

Do they hear all the sounds of the music too? Is that where their rhythm comes from?

Are they aware that time flies alongside them?

Do they know how plain they look? Do they envy butterflies?

Do they know where they are going to next? That this world is so big and they are so tiny?

Can they feel too? Are they happy or are they sad?

Look at them—not a worry in the world? Or maybe they are worried too, like all of us!

To you, they are grass-skippers but to me, they are stories and story-tellers and actors and dancers and art of another world, another time–another wisdom.

To you they have wings but to me, they have arms and legs and they wear glasses and they dance in the rain and yearn to fly away.

To you–they are are silent but to me–oh the songs they sing and the things they say and the music…always the music.

There they go–flying away, skipping to another time, another world, another life. And I stand here–smiling because I know I will see them there soon.

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

The year was 1995 and a little girl ran outside as the door opened to a portal. As she was scavenging around and seeking treasures amidst the hills and trees and streams and flowers and shrubs—she saw a cluster of tiny butterfly looking things. Fascinated, she marched to see what it was. And as she came close, all but one flew away.

The little girl reached out to pick the grass-skipper in her fingers. But it flew away. So she ran after it, hoping she can catch one. But it kept skipping away. It always did.

So the little girl twirled and ran after it–into the forest, skipping away.

And it has been a while.

Monochrome

Sheets, the empty sheets
Like messages in a bottle sinking in a sea,
Of being lost
The painting of the Dame and the color red
Red like her blood…when they found her dead,
Lost in the sea
Like the whirling trees and their rustling leaves
Green like the hope of finding the seeds,
Of a Future which was bleak
Just like today, when I stood on the hilltop,
Looking at the sea

Back to Bedlam

Dear Emptiness.

What art thou? What feeling are you–I want to know today! The only reasonable explanation i have is very confusing..Ha. Emptiness. What are you?

The only explanation—you are the feeling that everyone succumbs to one way or another. The feeling of having smoke inside your heart–smoke that just wont dissolve and turn into vapor, like everything else. 

So many faces and so many feelings they all hold and hide simultaneously. Emptiness–the feeling of lost sorrow. The feeling of never being alive–not even for a split second. Are you sadness? Happiness?

You are indeed the feeling of getting lost inside the same smoke that perturbs the heart and screens off the mind. The feeling of going on a shaky boat and not even being scared. But does that make you somewhat resemble being brave? Nay.

Brave is facing the open intense sea–you may not survive. You on the other hand are the feeling where one just sits on a shaky boat on a rough sea–not scared, not worried–yet making it out alive at the end–and not even ecstatic.

Emptiness–death before dying. Aloofness before pain. Harm before hurt. Blood before water. Tiredness after the storm has passed. But who cares. One simply puts emptiness aside–apart. And rejoices with the nature. Because see, nature is not empty. It holds secrets, luxuries and many many more things. But then–there is us. We, who are filled to the brim with a thousand and one dreams, hopes, fantasies and emotions. Yet–we are empty.

All of us! Like the stars..up above and faltering and alone and still shining. We look at them and are consumed with awe and fascination. Without knowing the cost and the effort and the force and the gravity behind their being up there. So we–just then suppress it all–shut everything tight inside us.

So tight that it creates a space–a crest–a hole—Emptiness.

We put a smile. And a brave face. We rejoice….with the rest of nature. And forget the empty hole…

But then we come back to life. Ha. Back to bedlam..back at last.

Alas dear heart….we travel back to the drudgery they call life. We all land right back in the empty hole–so we leave the blue sky behind..and fall right back in.

This is you Emptiness… And this is precisely me.

Dolefully Yours