A small stone is a short piece of writing (any style) that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment for you. The process of discovering small stones is as significant as the finished creation. Searching for small stones encourages you to keep your senses on the “alive and alert” status. Involve yourself with a new set of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, feelings and mind. This is Mindful Writing at its best.
A small stone is a short piece of writing (any style) that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment for you. The process of discovering small stones is as significant as the finished creation. Searching for small stones encourages you to keep your senses on the “alive and alert” status. Involve yourself with a new set of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, feelings and mind. This is Mindful Writing at its best.
The guilt that haunted me is still there.
For years, it would not let me sleep
I would dream of them in all situations and places
I would see the sneers or the undeserved generosity
I could feel the missed opportunities
To a better worldview, giving back, being supportive, showing grace or caring enough
Giving, even while receiving with both hands
The years of torment are gone now, only to fester as a wound.
They won’t let railways alone, those yellow flowers.
They’re that remorseless joy of dereliction
darkest banks exhale like vivid breath
as bricks divide to let them root between.
How every falling place convoys their smile,
taking what’s left and making a song of it.
Yesterday, I wrote. And with a twist. I wrote a few lines in my mother tongue Punjabi. It has been years since I picked my pen to write the language that has shaped my subconscious. This was in response to my blogger friend Jithin’s challenge to write something in our mother tongue on World Handwriting day.
Poetry of Shiv Kumar Batalvi
I wrote the first few lines of a beautiful poem by the noted Punjabi Poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi (1936-1973), well known for his romantic poetry full of passion and pathos. He was the youngest recipient of the Sahitya Academy Award in 1967. Batalvi’s poetry lives on in every Punjabi’s mind. I remember seeing his works among my father’s books. My mother often hummed his poetry. His verses have been immortalised by many Punjabi singers- Hans Raj Hans, Rabbi Shergill, Mahendra Kapoor, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jagjit Singh-Chitra Singh, Surinder Kaur, Asa Singh Mastana…
Here is a rough English translation of this poem.
Ek Kudi Jehda Naam Mohabbat
A girl whose name is LOVE, is lost, is lost, is lost………
simple, beautiful, she is lost…..An angel by face, like Mary by virtue,
flowers blossom when she laughs, seems a poem when she walks….
tall like cypress, age barely alight…
yet she understands the language of a glance, she is lost…
its been ages since she is lost, yet it feels yesterday…
feels like today, feels like now…
she was standing beside me just now, now she is beside me no more…
what this deception is, what trickery, my mind is amazed….
A girl whose name is LOVE, is lost, is lost, is lost………
Thanks to the reminder, I am now tempted to explore his poetry. The next time I go home, I shall pick ‘Luna’ and ‘Mainu Vida Karo’.
P.S. So much so for my enthusiasm, here is the correction made on my script by my husband.
There is a verse of Kennedy that is lovely. It is indicative of the light humour that marks his writings. I read it twelve years ago and instantly fell in love with it.
In three lines, it talks of travel, friends, pomposity. Brevity and humour marry!
X.J.Kennedy ( b.1929), was born Joseph Kennedy but he prefixed X to his name so that he could not be confused with the political family of Kennedys.
X.J. (Joseph) Kennedy has published six collections of verse. He has also authored eighteen children’s books and several textbooks.
His 1961 collection Nude Descending a Staircase won the Lamont Award and in 2001, Kennedy was awarded the Aiken Taylor award for lifetime achievement in poetry. The list of rewards and recognitions runs long.
He and his wife put together an anthology of children’s poetry,’ Knock at a star: A child’s introduction to poetry’ which is next on my must buy list for my elder child. The only other nonsensical verses I have loved are those of Lewis Carroll.
To read more about him and his excellent work, click here.
This post has been lying as a draft for more than a month. Many times, I had an overwhelming urge to share it but could not include any verses due to copyright restrictions. Thanks to Daily Post ,I have been able to resurrect it.
Ink and Crayon on paper. Signed 'Rabindra' in Bengali
I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.
Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941)
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone;
but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
Rabindranath Tagore in Fruit -Gathering (1861-1941)
A poet and a playwright, novelist and philosopher, he was the first non European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence.
OSIP MANDELSTAM (1891-1938)
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its Revolution and the rise of Soviet Union. He was imprisoned by Stalin’s government and died in a transit camp on the way to Siberia.
‘When you stop to consider
The days spent dreaming of a future
And say then, that was my life.’
For the days are long
From the first milk van
To the last shout in the night,
An eternity. But the weeks go by
Like birds; and the years,the years
Fly past anti-clockwise
Like clock hands in a bar-mirror.
Derek Mahon (b.1941)
Derek Mahon is an Irish poet and I was struck by the beauty and truthfulness of this poem many years back.
Read Write Live 