Reflections

Yes, but here I am alone. A wave builds up, perhaps it says its name, I don’t understand, it mutters, humps in its load of movement and foam and withdraws. Who can I ask what it said to me? Who among the waves can I name? And I wait. Once again the clearness approached, the soft numbers rose in foam and I didn’t know what to call them. So they whispered away, seeped into the mouth of the sand. Time obliterated all lips with the patience of shadow and the orange kiss of summer. I stayed alone, unable to respond to what the world was obviously offering me, listening to that richness spreading itself, the mysterious grapes of salt, love unknown, and in the fading day only a rumor remained, further away each time, until everything that was able to changed itself into silence. P.S. One reason why I really like Neruda is because I share the same love for the Sea with him. This poem describes in the best possible way, the thoughts I have each time I think a...

Thanks to a friend, I happened to read a poem by Pablo Neruda after a long time! And it just reminded me of how much more attention poetry by him demands! Here are a few poems by Neruda that I particularly like. I would have given a detailed explanation as to why but I guess his poems do the talking themselves! Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her...

While looking for “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky in the college library, I chanced upon a collection of poetry and prose by Christina Rossetti, a Victorian poetess born to Gabrielle Rossetti.   An occasional poet myself, I couldn’t resist the growing feeling of reading the book. Besides, the nine days of navratri vacations needed to be spent doing something worthwhile! What better way than indulge in some poetry and mathematics: both of them being things that I take keen interest in! Christina Rossetti, sister of Dante Rossetti writes about death very poignantly. Or perhaps I just happened to chance upon a lot of poems dedicated to that theme as I adopted the technique of randomizing the selection of poems to read! One such poem is: After Death The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept   And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may   Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,   Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.   He leaned above me, thinki...