Kaathu - An Obituary

Kaathu is a Thamizh word meaning wind / air. For us, the word 'Kaathu' is short for Kaathavaraayan, and synonymous with Love. Pure, unadulterated, unconditional Love. 

"Kaathavaraayan" is the name of a village deity in Tamil Nadu, meaning "the one who protects".  Our dog, Kaathu, short for Kaathavaraayan, enveloped and protected us in his cocoon of love. 

He died this morning, and what an auspicious death. In the early brahmamuhurtham time, just after Amavasya started, on Deepawali day. He leaves behind such a treasure of memories - adventure stories, fullnesses, lessons of life and love, togetherness and warmth during struggles and joys, silences and spaces, comedies and tragedies, a paw reaching out and calling for attention, a jaw gently placing itself on one's lap in quiet acknowledgement of emotion, melting eyes looking into mine with endless trust and love, lots and lots of comic play, sulks and making up, running with the wind in abandon, combats and resistances, always flowing, and holding us with such communication and sensitivity.  I will miss the space he gave me and how a deep part of me felt listened to by him. 

He had the biggest heart. There was so much space inside it that he put up with any kind of space outside. He adjusted and accommodated with all our meanderings and detours and whatnots of life with such cheer and sport. I remember, right during the 2015 floods, we were shifting bag and baggage to Tiruvannamalai. I was in this tiny Acer van, the driver on one side, me by his side, my 3something-yr-old daughter on my lap, and Kaathu at my feet. Thats all was the space for each of us for about 3-4 hours, as we took the highway through lashing rains, (lots of thunder and lightening), intimidating play of light and shadow all around as we crawled past dusk and into the night. All this frightens him, but he sat through it all, curled up and quite content, ensuring that his body was fully in contact, giving me a lick once in a while asking for attention (and/or giving it!). 

This was the way he loved - with his full loving presence and demanding the same from us. No loving quietly from the sidelines for this guy. He filled our lives with the light of his eyes and the love of his heart -
"sitting right in the middle of my carpentry tools as I chiseled and sawed that I had to encounter him constantly", says senior K;
"looking at me as I eat all the time wondering when he is going to get his tidbits, and competing with me for attention", says junior K;
"he would sit right there at the kitchen entrance as I cooked, or stretch out beside me, his entire body touching the side of my thigh and leg as I sat at my computer", says me. 
The grandmothers received his love in the way they wanted initially - without touch and from a slight distance (He knew this without being told). But over time, he won them over enough with all his beseeching looks, that they completely gave in and started patting his forehead or touching his torso carefully.  

He was just so completely there, fully present with us. And so much in silence. Except when he barked at something from outside. His bark belied his size and never failed to startle, stun or freeze anyone - human, animal or bird. It was like the roar of a lion. I took pleasure in his sound and his silence. And in the touch and feel of him. That's how he showed up.

He loved his food, and ate just about everything that we did. He wanted sambhar rice and tomato rice just as much as he lapped up pasta and pizza. He completely went for taste and refused to touch his food if it just had bland rice. Senior K has become so used to keeping aside whatever is cooked to mix in his food that this is going to be a difficult habit to lose, he said. The loss of an animal family member, that too one who had mixed himself with our days and moments so thoroughly, like sugar in milk, is difficult. He made life sweeter.  

We buried his body in a beautiful place under a neem tree, a brook gurgling nearby, surrounded by fields and trees, and in the gaze of Arunachala. As I smelt the fresh, tangy, unpolluted air, I was remembering Kaathu's doggy smell that I loved to bury my face and nose into. 

Climate Change

Pic by Guillermo Ferla on Unsplash

Girivalam Diary, 10th August 2021

Many legs walking along,
In this cool and pleasant morning.
Leisurely paces, firm gaits,
Trailing fire.
Hot and cold all at once.
Every eye encountered;
_a reflection of restfulness
Holding tiredness, and watchfulness.
As if a battle has been fought,
And crossed over.
Not of defeat or victory though.
We can only speak of relationships.
And intimacy.
With the self and the other.
With viruses.
Even the warrior
On a closer look-
though holding shield and sword
Is doing so with a smile,
Held by his backdrop
Of sky and mountain.
Soreness and tiredness,
Held in a gentle perception
of the centre
that seems to hold it all.

It's safe here
to encounter rage,
It is seen and held,
And subsides.
It's safe here
to encounter fear,
It is seen and held,
And subsides.
It's safe here
to encounter pleasure and aversion,
Joy and sorrow.
All seen and held,
Subsiding.
It's safe here
to glory in love and freedom.
There is a courage
that can arise out of such restfulness.
The perception of the largest
And deepest context
That one can hold,
And be held in.
There is no way ahead,
nor a map.
But this path
Shines around the centre.
Earth moves around the sun,
Twirling around her axis,
In joyous abandon.
How to dance the dance,
Will be revealed
As she dances
in cosmic rhythm.
This moment too will pass.
And the sea tides will rise
With the moon.
And subside again.
And life will go on.
Outer climate faithfully reflecting,
The inner. 

Ardhanarishvara - Reflections from Pavazhakundru

He is all Sky
She is all of Earth.
Wind in their wings--
Dancing with each other.
Lighting the lamp of love
Immersed in the river of life,
Sometimes swimming along the waves
Sometimes navigating the currents
Watching each other play.
He teachers her courage, and holds her;
As she flies, into his Infinity.
She teaches him patience, and anchors him;
Allowing him to rest, in her Creativity.
She sinks her teeth into his neck.
He returns the favour and crushes her lips.
They smile wickedly.

Innocently.
with joyous sorrow,
with painful pleasure,
As they both draw blood.
And kill each other every day,
Every moment.
So as to be born anew the next.
And meet again, and again. 
--------------------------------------------------------------
We are today in urgent need of finding and allowing the feminine and masculine within us to meet in ecstatic union. Both, the masculine and feminine of human society as a whole today are at war with each other and are only meeting on the battleground, swords drawn, guns exploding, and fighting each other from the shadows. They are seldom meeting in parks and gardens, or playing on the beach, or watching the sunrise together or dancing in the moonlight. This is largely the situation within individuals as well. For humanity to take this step, individuals need to allow this to happen in their beings, bodies. Each of us needs to allow the Ardhanarishvara within to take form, with the feminine and masculine coming together in perfect and dynamic rhythm. And this love is a continuing death-life process, happening every moment, so that each moment's action is born anew, out of that love. The future of the planet rests on this. 

- 21st July, Reflections and view from Pavazhamkundru, Tiruvannamalai where Ardhanarishvara is supposed to have taken form and given darshan. 

Returning

 

21st June 2021

All paths, yoga and otherwise, lead to you. 
All practice is of you.
All gifts are given by you.
All offerings are also yours. 
All breaths come from you,
And each OM exhaled returns home,
To You. 

16th Jan 2021 

The west sun welcomed me,

Settling into her own alchemy.
A friend recently spoke of homecoming-
And that's what I was humming.
A memory of what I'd left behind,
Taking form in my mind.
The sounds and sight;
Smells of dipping hands into twilight...
The taste of a sweetness,
Ageless. Timeless.
Home sweet home,
Resting quietly in chrome.
Returning to this epicentre,
Is not governed by my calendar.
I can only try to listen.
And answer again and again...
Until the epicentre,
Dissolves into its heart-centre. 

Behind

Antness of  the ant

elephantness of the elephant

natureness of Nature 

humanness of the Human

deathness of death

lifeness of life.

Plunging deep,

into the heart of form,

into the core of Earth;

into the core of me --

burning there. 

Would that dissolve form? 

Can something be created 

out of nothing? 

Clay and potter --

Her creative energy

her hands

skin and breath,

the smell of wet earth,

and its texture-

mingle on the wheel-

round and round and round... 

and breathe life as one. 

what gives life? 

the mud? 

the potter? 

the wheel? 

all of them swirling together? 

They all seem to matter,

And yet, they all are but matter;

material of life,

that move around a centre.

(What is it that breathes?) 

Who are You? 

What are You? 

Behind. 

the mind cannot but help,

take recourse to what it 'knows'

what it believes--

brilliant as that recourse is.

swirling and churning,

the material of life -- 

Words in a book,

still not what they denote.

And yet... 

Krishna tells Draupadi

in a letter-

on a thousand-petalled golden lotus: 

I am Infinity. 

I am your unbreakable bond,

with everything else.

I am your Arjuna too.

The universe is,

but a reflection of me.

I AM. 

Who is this I then? 

And what can the I create? 

I am an infant

searching for the new 

to come out of me,

while all that there is,

It already is. 

- April 2021

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

A poem evoked by the essay, "Why Exhibit Works of Art?" by Ananda Coomaraswamy, which had been in discussion at Purnam Cafe. 

Surrender

The train that has reached, 

its destination. 
Tracks end here.
Remains of many journeys
rattle under the seats;
are being swept away.
Mains switched off now.
surely the morrow brings possibilities,
of new journeys? 

The house that has been,

emptied.

Hollow sounds echo. 

whitewashing,

can remove stains on walls.

what of hearts,

haunted by memories? 

Not real anymore. 

cannot hearts make homes? 

The box of paints that has

dried up.

Brushes scratch the bottom,

in vain,

As the canvas waits. 

cannot the sound of the scratch-

and the smell of canvas-

and the taste of blood-

and the touch of death-

paint

-what is waiting to come alive? 

This summer,

the village again sees the river bed.

cracked and calloused. 

its the first summer,

she's noticing it,

on the other side of childhood. 

The villagers

point to the signs.

saying, the rains will come. 

he panics. chokes. 

Lugs buckets of water,

from their summer stores,

and pours it in! 

from time to time

the futility hits her,

leaving her emptier than the river bed,

if that's possible. 

he sits on the river bank,

looking at the circling birds,

picking up a wet smell in the air,

and listens to the crick-crick of insects. 

Drawing up her knees,

she settles down to wait.

Perhaps the rains will come.

For now, she takes a breath

allowing it to seep in

through the emptiness. 

Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Living

 Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Living –
Also a review of the book, This Too Shall Pass, by Elango Thambiah.

A story is alive, throbbing, when it is straight from the heart and can reach deep into the hearts of its listeners and pluck strings there. This is such a story.  In first person, from the real-life incidents that took place in the life of its protagonists, it is narrated in such a simple manner, that reading it felt like drinking a large mug of hot chocolate as a young something, snuggled into the warmth of a grandmother’s love listening to her wisdom stories.

It tells the profound story of a family living through the trauma and subsequent recovery of one of its members suffering from brain hemorrhage, and how they find their way back to the land of the living.

 I read the book last week over 4 evenings and nights, of days filled with intense, meditative study of Vibhuti Pada, chapter 3 of the yoga sutra, with a group of co-sadhakas that also included the author-protagonists of the book!  

And because of this concurrence of the yoga study and life story perhaps, this book seems forever intertwined with the learning and insights from the Vibhuti Pada of the yoga sutra:

How it is possible to connect with the ecstatic joy and beauty of simply being Alive.

How just by the virtue of being this ordinary human being, he and she have the potential and possibilities of channelizing and straddling an extraordinary state of being, the extraordariness of Life, with an ordinary self simply by surrendering to that life. To the very act of being fully alive to this present moment.

Pic by Vincent on Unsplash

This book epitomizes the above for me. And brought alive an inner story for me, completing the healing process of one big part of me, and closing a very old wound. A wound that said, “Any change means loss; loss of love, loss of warmth, loss of safety, belonging… so, fear change and shun change.” A wound that did not believe that there is anything permanent and holding a terror of everything that is not.  And yet, a deeper part of me had always searched for the permanent. Is there anything that is unchanging?

This Too Shall Pass is about that which is unchanging that rests in all the dance and drama of change. And brought home to me in a primal way, that Change also means new, fresh prANA, new forms of love, new explorations, possibilities and ways of being. How fun.

It is then possible to live life with this changing, ordinary moment, every moment, being held in the lap of the extraordinary permanence within it. And as Thomas Merton says, live and celebrate the “present festival”. Like a new, tender shoot. 

Do consider buying the book, much of the proceeds from its sale will go to The GangaFoundation, an organisation for enhancing the quality of life of persons with Spinal cord injury in India, co-founded by the author, Elango Thambiah, . , 

The Story of an Evening Walk

Fields stretch endlessly,

Meeting horizon

Bringing it closer.

Egrets and pond herons

At dusk.

Doing whatever they do,

On the fields.

The harvest is over.

Ground getting ready

For the next season,

Standing immersed in water.

Sky blue glistening on the ground,

A world turned upside-down.

Shades and layers of green,

Rising in varied textures,

To meet sky again.

An evening walk,

Encounters this world,

From the road;

From the other side-

Of a barbed wire fence.

Wondering,

Will an evening walk do,

To cross over?

What does it take

To pull down the fence?

What is some blood

On the arms and palms?

There was one who bled;

Who bore the pain of humanity

And was crucified.

Cannot an evening walk,

Take some of that pain?

And yet,

The mind is a strange machine.

It wants more roads,

With just the right mix,

Of concrete and rustic

Lest it becomes too urban-

But still needing,

The comfort of a laid out path

For the elevating evening walk.

Which never crosses over,

To the upside-down world

Of pond herons and egrets.

That justs sits there

Seemingly doing nothing;

Except of course inspire

Philosophy & poetry.

What does it take

For these worlds to merge?

A merging seems the 'answer',

When both call

In the same voice.

But the road no longer

Holds a song.

It's a flat note,

That the road wheezes out.

Sweeter seem the raucous cries

Of the egrets

And the staccato hoots

Of the pond herons.

The evening walk

Swells in indignation and anger

At the upside-down world.

Is it just going to sit there--

Looking pretty

And calling sweetly?

Shouldn't it show the way,

To reach it?

Seems the least it can do!

The black comedy

Of wanting a path again

For the evening to walk on....

To the world of egrets and herons.

So near, yet so far.

And it will be so.

For all paths

Are but habits of memory.

And all habits

Are but self-deception.

The evening walk,

Can wear itself out,

And plonk on the roadside.

Watching the upside-down world,

So near yet so far.

Sitting there, watching.

The evening walk

Is no longer the evening walk.

Because..... It's not walking any more.

Well, duh!

Empty now.

Not knowing what to make

Of this world or that,

Or itself;

Sitting there watching.

And getting angrier by the moment.

Until suddenly,

The wind catches something--

The faint strains of a melody.

Is that acceptance

Wrapping itself around the heart?

Is that acceptance

Whispering in the ear?

Is that acceptance-

Like the smell of fresh earth

rising after the rains?

Who knows

What the morning brings?

But for now,

There is acceptance.

The evening is content to burn,

With the sun.

pathless

Sometimes, there comes a time
When nothing answers;

The books are done and dusted,
They have no wisdom.
Well-meaning friends
Have had their say-
There are a dozen paths to take.
None offering light.
What is left to consider,
Is one's own emptiness.
Sitting on a park bench
One can look up-
Into the patterns made by life
On the limitless blue beyond,
and breathe...
While waiting for inspiration.

Heart on Fire – Rukmini Paatti’s Obituary

The first feeling that I had yesterday, as I went to the ice-box and saw paatti lying still in it, was of a sinking and heavy heart. One more life from that precious generation gone; paatti is, was, around 93 years - this generation I mean. I hold it precious because elders I know from this age seem to live with a sense of fullness of life… complete, whole, seasoned lives. The following sloka comes to mind as I think of this phenomenon:

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Om Puurnnam-Adah Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Puurnnam-Udacyate |
Puurnnasya Puurnnam-Aadaaya Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate ||
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Roughly translated, “That is complete. This is complete. From completeness, arises completeness. Removing completeness from completeness, only completeness remains. Peace. Peace. Peace.”

Granted that I didn’t see that much of Rukmini paatti in recent times. It had been in the 90s that I met her a lot, going to school with her granddaughter Sathya, one of my best friends from school.  And then for about a year or so between 1995 and 1997 I saw her for a few hours every day. Particular life circumstances made it such that I spent almost all my time besides school and sleeping hours, at their house for that time period. Then as we grew up, and supposed adulthood, its daily life and responsibilities took over, my visits got lesser and lesser.  

However, I never could forget her altogether. She made it so. I went over to visit them (paatti and thatha) in their lovely Mandaiveli house from time to time, selfishly just to get her sweet blessings. And she, peace be with her soul, never forgot to call and wish me every year for my wedding anniversary, a month earlier on the same date! Every year.  We would laugh about it, she’d say, ok I have it marked right this time, and then like clockwork call me a month earlier for my anniversary the next year.

This I will remember of her the foremost – her sweetness of speech.  In all the years that I have known her, I have never heard her utter one word that was harsh, or with ill-will.  The two instances that I do remember her starting to say something that was approaching negative, she stopped herself to say “but we don’t know what it is for them” and “we don’t know their circumstances”. 

A heart, so pure and innocent, was sending out the sweetest blessings for me and for others. Wholesome blessings with utter absence of any agenda, guile or self.  It was all between Perumaal (Lord Vishnu) and the receiver of the blessings. That she was simply the almost-invisible instrument, was the implicit feeling in the way she gave her blessings. I realise that my fervent prayer as I write this is for me to imbibe this quality of hers, while also laughing wryly at the irony that the prayer itself has so much self. Whenever I gave my obeisance in the traditional way, by doing namaskaaram and touching her feet (which was every visit, to hear her blessings of course!), she would just direct me to the altar as well every time. And say, “it all comes from there”.  

I will always remember her as so active, taking care of her household and everyone in such a lively manner. Not a stray moment around her, until the last couple of years when age took over Will I think.  She knew that I loved coffee, and the first thing she would do is to give me a cup whenever I visited. I always saw her taking care that all of us, Satya’s friends, or anyone else in her vicinity had eaten properly, and insist on this. Like many elders from that generation, she would remember the significant to the smallest life details that we tell her, and ask about them. The job offer. Daughter’s school. Shift to new city, are you settled. Cold and cough a month back, how are you now.  Didn’t you say painting was happening, is it over ... Such keen interest in the sense of well-being of people around that she would glean from all this apparently “just information”.   

It is this aspect of being able to serve the well-being of others that she seems to have held above all. Way back in 1992 I think, when I first started going over to their place, there'd been a time of water shortage in Chennai.  The water lorry came when I'd been there chatting with Satya. I helped with the activity of filling up many drums and pots and stocking up water and saw it through until the lorry left, and the work was over.  She never failed to mention this as her first introduction of me to anyone, for more than a decade.  I am pretty sure that it was this one instance that warmed her to me so much. 

It has been a couple of months now since I visited. When I mentioned regret that I hadn’t been able to see her one last time and get her aashirvaadam (blessings), Sathya sent me this message: “She really wasn’t talking the last 10 days. I would hold the memory of her as the active, loving person you know, with the natural simplicity of being that many of us aspire towards.” 

By the time the rituals were completed at home, and she was taken to the crematorium, her body had started shrinking rapidly, and face had started looking bird-like. As part of the ritual, coal was placed on her heart, ghee (clarified butter) was poured on it, and it was then lit. My heart was on fire. Her body was pushed into the incinerator.  The impermanence of this physical body and the permanence of some higher energy that it houses – Paatti and others of her generation seemed to be so much in touch with this, and so effortlessly.  Maybe it is this sensing that gave Rukmini paatti her pure and good heart and her simplicity of being. What more is this body for, if not this religion.

Sathya’s words are paatti’s truest essence - her religion of the heart. It is this picture of her I will carry in my heart forever, and this slokam as her life’s blessing:

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Truth

JK* said, "truth is a pathless land"

Besant Nagar Beach, Chennai, not yet 6 AM, April 2019

Looking out at the morning scene
I felt,
Truth is a mystery
It is as simple and as complex
as we make it out to be.
It is of all colours of creation.
It appears and disappears,
Disguised in a zillion forms,
In the many layers
Of our plans and endeavours 
And aspirations,
And search for it. 
It hides.
Behind clouds of misunderstandings,
It blazes with Love. 
It holds ends together -
For this lightening sky and steel-grey sea
Holds yesterday's memory
Of fading daylight
Meeting the light of dusk,
Smudging the horizon;
Transforming the sky
Into His inky colour.
The Divine prankster's play:
A scientific movement.
Words will always fall short
Of original beauty and perfection.
Unbelievably, the clouds rumble.
Everchanging, illusive, mysterious-
Truth laughs at me 
while I try to capture It.
And says,
"You are part of me,
I am the truth of your existence"
-----------------------------------------------

JK* - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Solitude

Blissful Solitude. 

Photo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPoP7Kk7vgU
(Dakshinamurthy Sthothram)

And yet for the most part,
the world shuns it,
And ridicules those,
Who don’t.

They are afraid,
terrified even.
Of Pain.
They are even more,
Terrified
Of encountering
the heart in Pain.
The broken, bleeding heart
Is no joy.
And there is nowhere to run
in Solitude.
Perhaps the world is wise.

Blissful Solitude.
That rips me apart,
sucks me dry,
holds me Down
with the Pain.
I have no words,
to describe this.
There is no more fighting,
nothing left to fight with.
Not even my heart,
Or so I think.

The peace treaty
brings a discovery.
In his ode to Dakshinamoorthy,
Sri Sankara says,
The great lamp shines through
many holes in the pot,
shedding light in all directions.
I climb over
to the other side of Pain.

Blissful Solitude.
Is a paradox.
It takes us deep.
into the forests,
up the mountain,
the deep sea…
Take your pick.
It takes us
to find the hearts in Pain,
for they hold the treasures.
But those treasures --
Solitude’s Blisses,
can only be savoured,
in their reflections
in the Other
When Solitude is lost.
And yet it is not.
Perhaps the world is wise.

Writing

My first love.
My better half.
My greatest romance,
I met you perhaps
When I was 6 or 7.
You took me to a forest
And made me it's Princess.
Sitting on that Madurai terrace
With its interesting
Nooks and crannies.
I could understand
All the animalSpeak
And they understood me.
Under that darkening sky,
I was alone;
And yet not at all.
Lost in the sounds and sights and smells
Of the forest;
In finding you,
I found myself that day,
When I was 6 or 7.
I started writing!
"I am the Princess of the forest...."
I won't go further, don't worry,
Into the strange pathways
Of the 6 or 7-years old forest.

As expected,
The romance of the first years
Is unbelievable, isn't it?
My autocorrect typed in - "unreliable".
Freudian slip, that?
Romancing you,
I poured poetry and my soul
Into a zillion pages.
Well, at least a fifty of them.
Into a thick diary,
Which saw its early death
In one of the many passages,
Through rented houses
That middle class Indian families
Go through like a pack of cards.
Childhood gone too early,
I didn't know to grieve my diary.
I replaced the romance
With expectations,
As expected.

You stayed with me,
As I wandered through Life.
Even as I took you
For granted.
We met under the night sky sometimes
With the stars and the moon
And the solitary plane.
We met,
When I searched everywhere
For my specs,
And then found them in my pocket!
We met,
When I felt like it,
When I got sad,
When I wanted to impress someone,
or make them laugh.
When excitement filled the air,
Or perhaps melancholy.
You taught me humour,
And looking closely.
You taught me to do Life,
While I made you wait.

I decided,
That I wanted marriage.
I planned much
For all its trappings.
Complete with a house,
Garden, children and dogs,
Dimming lights for romantic evenings,
And bean bags for rainy days.
Red oxide flooring and earthern ware,
As local as possible,
For that is sustainable. ..
But dreams were also made up of:
Vacations in Bhutan and Srilanka
For I wanted to understand neighbours.
Foreign to myself slowly,
And you as well.

Somewhere,
Along the way,
I don't know where,
All of a sudden,
I found you gone.
And panicked.
You then came and went
As you pleased.
I threw tantrums
Kicked and screamed
Till I was blue.
Kicked some more,
Screamed some more,
Cried a whole lot more...
You seemed to soften
And said, "look closely"
And much to my chagrin,
Went away again!
Paths dried up,
Garden withered,
Poof!
The castle in the air,
Became one with it.
Dark all around,
Dimming lights be damned!
The rest of that story,
As they say is history.
Or Herstory,
Of losing and finding herself.

Flash forward to present.
I am sitting with you,
You still inspire me
To be my best.
You say,
"All I want is,
Your attention.
Your presence.
Be with me.
Whatever follows,
Follows."
Watching,
An innocuous mug
In an innocuous bathroom,
Get filled with water,
The sound,
Changing as the mug
Gets from empty to full-
When I am with you,
I am no longer innocuous.

I redo,
My vows with you.
I want nothing,
Out of you.
I want nothing,
Because of you.
I would much rather
Have these moments
Of sitting with you
And having you
Do Life, do me,
In my most private moments.
I would much rather
Just have you along,
For the conversation
And company,
As I get squished in a crowded bus,
Or am triggered by a commercial ad,
Feeling loved amongst friends,
Or like a worm after a shouting match,
Satisfied after a successful workshop,
Not getting enough FB likes!
Or getting too much,
Of unwanted counsel....
I just want you to be.
Through it all.

Garbage everywhere,
Overflowing bins too small
To hold,
the world's unresolved emotions.
When I feel too small,
And inadequate...
Or too big, grandiose --
Or anybody in between,
Spewing out garbage-
Nonetheless,
You hold me
Through it all.
Making life art
Making new meaning,
Making over,
Making love,
You make me art.