WHEN I LOOK UP I KNOW THAT WE CAN MAKE LOVE AGAIN

 i was travelling the National Highway

on a Saturday morning to my parents' home.
The primordial sun;
that old fire that shone its allegiance to my foremothers and mothers past-
now dressed my face in its amber gold.
How the sun can be so loud that
i can hear its ibaadat i will never know.
And in its March warmth, i watched
the sidelines stigmatized with trees illicit
Of which
one particular tree caught my eyes.
It was bare. It hardly held any leaves.
It had no answers to offer but itself.
Its gnarled perfect branches were shaped
like a sacred candelabrum-
the kind Jews light for Hanukkah.
Proffering its devotion to the skies above,
to an ancient waiting light,
in all its nakedness, in all its emptiness,
in all its self allowing,
profuse and complete in its deficiency,
this tree was sensual in its endured longing,
reveling in its utter aradhana.
This exquisite samarpanam
was the most exposed desire
i'd ever come across that day and in awhile.
There was something soft and spacious
in this willing participation.
This muted kiss. This quiet intercourse.
This slow-deep understanding between worlds
that it very simply moved me to tears.
We maybe collapsing under the weight of the many unprecedented yet well presaged crises.
But there is beauty, still.
And we still can make love.

Synonyms for Mathrubhoomi

 

I

 

i learned to hold ground for my feet today.

Very untoward is my feet to the ways of the terrain beneath
but
i learned to hold feet for my earth today.

 

II

 

While traversing the incurvations of this land-

a Mathrubhumi of rubber trees
somewhere in the verdigris of Kerala-

my family and i was constantly met with crests and indentations of the turf

                        small and large                  shallow and deep

And inside me moves the rise and dip of fear-

my fear for heightened surfaces           

                                                         my fear for depression surfaces                            

 
Fear traversing like slivers of smoke inside me,
s p r e a d i n g         i t s       s c e n t

holding me in its strange allure

 

and in response, my feet cower like curlicued claws

 

III

 

Rubber trees:

                       tall spare leaning sideways be-holding me

                       almost silver to look at against the opaline sky

                       like the luminous tresses of an elder woman

 

 

i continue the ascend, my arduous feet
upon Bhumi’s russet ebullient ways

 

 

Shedding copal amber leaves glide from rubber trees
displaying how even death Is grace

 

IV

I now reach another point of elevation            my fear arrives in tides
i wait to harvest will and courage           to take bounds and leaps like the child

 

i fail utterly and instead I pray                      while my body squats to meet the earth, borrowing anchor

My fingers and palms hold steadfastly to the
surging serpentine roots

my palms caressed by a recently rain sighed ochre coarse soil

And thus i make the mount to join my family-
And thus i become root bound.

"Trust the earth, Trust your feet.”

                                                              whisperings of a rumour

“Trust your earth, Trust the feet."

 

 

Another Slope

                            Downward.

                                                   Fall ?

V

i stand rooted at the arc of the earth mound.

Cumulus clouds deepen in libidinous dark-grey above

 

Everywhere were the architecture of eyes seeing me

“Trust your earth. Trust your feet”

 

my body must be earth-like     if     i ever were to meet earth.

Unbridling myself                             seeping all that I weigh into its cacao mud body

my breath : a scaffolder of grace                    releasing the burden of fear

i plunge: i land : i spring : i arrive            at the arms of my awaiting beloved.

 

This is how i sculpted faith from silence