The Prelude

This has really been a long time coming. I say that not only because I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now, but also that I’ve been filling up my personal diaries with thoughts and scraps of imagination that could easily have fitted into a personal blog. What kept me waiting all this time was perhaps an overwhelming sense of possessiveness towards my own thoughts and feelings. My writings have always been very close to my heart, as honest an expression of myself as only a few people closest to me know about. Now, after 3 years in college, having experienced some of the good, bad and the ugly and having seen a little bit of the world, my heart tells me it’s time to let go. To let go of those painted butterflies I have been holding in my palm for long—now I think they are strong enough to fly!
I am not a religious person, although there are certain things I worship—poetry is one of them. Poetic expressions are everywhere, but most of all they are in your mind, intertwined in every thought and color that you might conjure. Many people think of it as an inconsistent, cryptic way of expression and often one that is associated with the long-haired and bearded eccentric “intellectuals” who have nothing better to do than analyze the abstract wanderings of someone else’s thoughts. Well, I do believe that analyzing verses in terms of its literal meanings (as we were often asked to do in school) can be a futile exercise—rather, you’ve got to feel the sense and the sound of it, take it in as a whole—much like a song where one single note is an isolated sound whereas the song in its entirety is music that fills your mind with a million colorful feelings! And yes, it is hard to comprehend sometimes; but if you think about it, it is bound to be, and it is in this apparent abstractness that the real beauty of poetry lies. You see, often, it is born out of thoughts in its very purest form, where they have not been constricted by the boundaries of one’s physical surroundings or chiseled and shaped by the nature of society and the outer world. And expressing this very unstructured feelings requires a language as fluent and dynamic as the mind itself. Now, isn’t it natural that this language would be different, more complex and demanding than the normal colloquial dialect or even prose for that matter? After all, you don’t expect to be able to understand the equations of quantum mechanics without studying the subject deeply? That’s because like poetry, they too embody a complex system through their expressions, and that demands them to be written in an equally complex and somewhat abstract script called mathematics! Having said that, it’s worth mentioning that the greatest poets do manage to impart clarity and universal meaning to their poems in the midst of the streams of ideas and thoughts—and that precisely is what makes them great. I’m sure many of the readers will agree that there is an immense pleasure that comes out of this exercise—that when you are able to navigate your way through the labyrinth of abstract expressions to excavate an idea or a deep-rooted meaning, the feeling is ecstatic. Like looking at a picture which at first glance, seems to be just a splash of colors and gradually as you look carefully, outlines begin to appear, shapes begin to take form and an entire image emerges from the background. And it is then you realize how powerful poetry is as it leaves a deep impression in your mind—perhaps because it can touch your feelings directly and so profoundly, swaying them to the sense and sound of the words.
As far as my own writing goes, inspirations are few and far between, but then there’s always imagination! I have these little thoughts now and then, like little drops of ink—and then, my imagination nurtures them, moulds them into letters, words and then fills up a few pages of my diary. Now, let me turn this page into my own little sky as I let fly a couple of those butterflies I promised to. Here goes…. hope you like it.

1
What do you say when you have no words?
Maybe you delve into the eerie silence of the night
And discover your own painted thoughts,
Blow them away into the world
In search of canvases to glorify.
Maybe you speak
The language of dreams,
Which is to feel and not to think;
Maybe you find all that was thought
Was nothing but a dream,
And all that felt was truth itself—
Like the stars that glow
Through the twilight gloom.

2
When it rains like this
On a dreary autumn evening,
Drop by drop into my heart
It smells of sweet belonging—
Of times spent in thought,
Of dreams that were born
At the spark of lightning,
Of storms that shook me and took me far away
Like some fallen withered leaf
Searching for its soul.
And now it’s time for dusk
The long awaited shore;
The fire will burn no doubt,
In gentle rhythmic waves
With the warmth that felt like you;
And the night will shine,
In a thousand colored stars
I know when you’ll light me up
One day in the twilight sky—
It’ll rain like this, for sure!