Only the rock lives

( Image from the Internet)

So I am teaching my daughter about Asteroids and Meteorites, the book defines them as 'pieces of rock revolving around the sun. When they come near the earth they are puled by the force of gravitation and the friction produces fire, making them look like shooting stars.' My daughter says, 'wow mum some planet breaks and the rocks remain suspended so long in time?' I smile and think, perhaps it is only the rocks that are real, the emotions vanish, man vanishes, what remains hanging in space are rocks. I show her this picture then and she looks at other craters created from the impact of the Meteor, I tell her to concentrate on the rock, because that is what shall always remain. The crater would be filled, the rock might disintegrate into dust beyond a point but in that speck it would still remain hanging and suspended somewhere unlike any of us and our thoughts..the notion in itself eerie yet comforting. 

When I teach her about inscription I find myself fascinated by the fact that you carve a piece of your thought into stone, a poem or a painting like a caveman might have done thousands of years ago and someone discovers it many many years later..they pass their hands on it, wonder what emotion made you write what you did and you are alive even if for a bit in that space and time..in that thought..the rock lives, it survives and so does your thought..hanging somewhere suspended in time. 

Collecting thoughts

Over the past week, I have been walking..I always walk..in different directions..never in the same direction. There is of course nothing new to my walks..except that this time I have been collecting..hoarding even..thought process..In coffee shops, in side walks, people seem to want to talk at the slightest hint of a listening ear..there are voices that are afraid, confused, concerned, bored..but most of all voices that are tired.

When I am back home, I am tired too..not from my walks or from what I hear, but my restlessness and perhaps my inability to soothe. It took me back to my first poem. An overcast evening from my hostel window during my graduation days..The window grill had somehow captured me behind them and with it my worries..I loved watching the gulls..large, restless birds..forever circling the sky..pale against its grey contours. It had started to rain..somewhere in my sub-conscious mind some yellow leaves fell off a tree. I looked then and seemingly for the first time noticed two trees, Amaltas standing side by side. One in perfect bloom with bright yellow flowers and no leaves and the other all green with not a trace of yellow. The image has since struck in the the mind and been my escape, from questions and situations i have no answers to..in gathering solutions, even as I realize that there is none.

I shall walk again, talk again and come back to the Amaltas every time my mind is disturbed..for most solutions lie beneath a tree.

( Image from Google)