MY poem

MY poem

"I did it!" I say, and I also say,
"I am doing it" or "I will do it."
Though the tense shifts its sway
In every tense " I " fit.

But sometimes, by Almighty's grace,
This vain and egotistic mind
Breaks the barrier of time and space
And the actual doer it finds.

Then humbled, it begins to sing,
"It's You!  It's  You!  It's  You!
In everyone and in everything;
The cause and the effect too!"

As long as I have Lord's grace on me
My perspective is divine.
When not,  "I, Myself" rise in "Me"
To claim this poem as "Mine"

--------------------

Stamping a Cycle Singh

Did you know that the Indian Govt. had come out with stamps featuring Sikhs in sports? I didn't know it either. Here is a particular one that I take a fancy to, a Sikh in the cycling sport. The stamp was released in 1990 to commemorate the XI Asian Games. With Spring officially kicked into season yesterday (and we had snow today!) I am raring to hit the road with my bike.

1) If there is a cycle somewhere, then there must be a cycle pump somewhere.
2) If there is a Sardar somewhere, then there must be an angry Sardar somewhere.

Putting the above two together it follows that:
3) If there is a Sardar on a cycle somewhere, then there must be an angry Sardar with a cycle-pump somewhere.

Showing it to be true is Saif Ali Khan captured on the left playing Veer Singh in love with Harleen Kaur in 'Love Aaj Kal'. (Look out for Saif on the vintage bicycle with his lunch box hanging by the handle bar)

Brain Food: Whey to Success

Eating yogurt sweetened with sugar on an exam day before setting of for school was something that none of us three brothers would dare to miss. It brought us luck, we believed. That we did well in school perhaps only served to reinforce our belief in the mythical properties of yogurt. Perhaps, an even stronger reinforcement must have been our memory of the days when we did not eat the customary bowl of yogurt and fared poorly on the test. Conveniently, we didn't attribute the poor performance to our inadequate preparation but to the yogurt that we did not have. It was superstition being internalized.

Mom didn’t know that yogurt is rich in tyrosine, an amino acid that helps produce two neurotransmitters, dopamine and noradrenalin. She didn’t know that tyrosine aids mental alertness and memory retention. But she remembered the days of her childhood when her mother made sure that mom ate yogurt at the very least on the days she had exams. And Mom would have damned herself if she hadn't in turn passed on the successful formula to her children. If yogurt could bolster the chances of her children getting on the honors list, she wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned or any milk in the house uncultured. And were yogurt not ready on an exam day morning -- she usually made it at home -- one of us three brothers would rush to the market nearby and get some for us to have our timely bowlful or spoonful before we pedaled off to school. Yogurt remained a secret ingredient of the recipe of our success in school.

Shining Shards

Sixty seven smiling faces
On the mirror in whole and part;
Sixty seven solemn pieces
Of the mirror or a broken heart?

The Crooked Line

It was a long and crooked line
And all the people in the line
Ended up with long and crooked necks
When they craned them to make those checks
That a person not in line
Should not end up front in line
For they were standing since so long
And it would have been all so wrong
If someone standing not in line
Should get ahead of them in line
While all they who their turns await
Already late, now get more late?
So all the people in the line
Stood in line and saw that the line
Was a line and remained so
Till they were done and free to go.

The Dream That Was Not

Lost in sleep I hear her rise,
Feel her warm lips on my eyes,
A kiss on each, one on my head,
And she steals softly out of bed;
Time stops while out she flies.

A wet towel lies limp on the sink,
A bathrobe hangs damp and pink,
The tub traps some silken hair,
An eau de parfum floats in air,
The shower curtain sports a wink.

She has left herself behind
Several ways she could find
Reminding me she wasn't just a dream,
Even scrawling herself on the steamed
Mirror in my dreaming mind.
          ...............

(Image: Painting by Alyssa Monks, Steamed 64x86, oil on linen, 2009; www.alyssamonks.com)

A Point of View from Balcony

Lounging in the balcony
       Seventh floor from ground,
Above all the cacophony
       With tree-tops to surround,
On higher ground and looking high
I am lost in the evening sky.

Clouds on the dusky screen,
       Birds chirp with Dolby effect;
The breeze too is cool and clean
       The settings are just perfect,
As Nature plays the show for me
And for all those who care to see.

But roof tops on the horizon
       Antennae and water tanks,
Block the view of setting sun
       And cut my note of thanks;
An intermission, it is I find,
That Nature never designed.


It is the handiwork of man
       Who, in trying to emulate
The creator - but never can,
       Realizes it only too late
That with all his intelligent toys
He builds less but more destroys.

Cutting trees and blasting rocks
       A crime each one of us abets,
Making concrete jungle that blocks
       The wind and serene sunsets;
Blue blocked by gray, earth stripped of green,
We experience Nature on the plasma screen.

Concrete pavements, roads tarred,
       Narrow alleys of brick-mortar walls,
A decent view of nature is barred
       For those seated in the lower stalls;
And sky-gazing the flick
They end up with a crick.
.................

stoned

Like a stone
shattering the calmness,
radiating ripples
on the still surface,
a smile skips your face,
and I wonder
what stone
rippled the calm waters of your heart?

The stone enveloped;
Your face -
the still surface,
conceals the bottom.
And I stand by the shore,
longing to dive in
to ripple your face
for the same dimpled smile
and drown myself
in the depths of your heart;
My life fulfilled.

Let me in, let me sink,
shall not make a splash
neither swim.
Open your heart
think me in.

(image from http://prairiepathways.com/)

13.1 Boston: A wise choice?

Hmmm. Did I choose the wrong race for my first half-marathon?

Runners on runnersworld.com and on the 13.1 group on Facebook who say they have been training on the Blue Hills course for the 13.1 Boston this weekend allude to the hilliness of the course. Hills kill me, whether biking or running. 

Most part of the trail I have been training on is flat. Distance wise, I feel okay; I have run 12+ a couple of times last week and, going by those runs, the 13 this Sunday should not present a problem. What raises doubts are  those drops and climbs on the elevation map.

Update: I completed the race in 2:19, a timing nothing to boast about. I was surprised at how strong I felt at the end, which means that there are quite a few minutes in that timing begging to be shaved in the next race. Am and Smee too had fun. They came over the previous evening. Earlier in the day I collected our race packets from Boston and even managed to eke out a bike ride along the race route.  "The reported hills are for real," I later reported to Am and Smee that evening as we sorted through our race bibs, shirts, and timing-chips. Ah well, so be it, we collectively groaned and, wondering if the anticipation of the morn would allow us any sleep, we drifted off to sleep that was partly attributed to the bedtime stories I was telling my nephew in his adjoining room. "We overheard the stories," they confessed.

The race was poorly organized: the aid stations not only ran out of Gatorade but also ran out of cups for water; volunteers served water directly from the gallon containers and runners cupped their palms to drink; the live bands at the promised locations along the route, where were they? The organizers received lot of flak for this race and rightly so. What saved their hide was the beautiful weather and the charming route.  It wasn't a good race for those seeking to better their PR. However, it was the first race for the three of us; we were there to have fun and we sure had loads of it.

Adrift

desires sprout wings
from feathers of whims
with shafts and vanes
of prayers and hymns.
feathered desires,
ice forged on fires.


o'er mountains of future
o'er valleys of past
they soar and glide
no ground too vast
for them to cover; neither a sky too high
for their wings that flap in the blink of an eye.

 
holding together
these feathery things
with air in them
wind beneath their wings
desires drift untethered unpinned;
and I adrift, a feather in the wind.


copyright © musingh