Foreign tongue

 Foreign tongue

Poetry is a foreign tongue

Tracing indecipherable contours

On a page

Until it bypasses understanding

In words

To leave sketches in emotion

Until it bypasses your mind

To stir your heart

Then poetry sprouts

Among the words on a page

And in our experience

It is not to be understood , but felt

Known in the depths of feeling

Not the shreds of analysis

And we learn to feel, relate

To a foreign tongue

Until it turns familiar

Poetry is

when the other

becomes our own .

—shubha

Mirror mazes

Mirror mazes

Squeezed out emotions
Blot paper as words
Each a new squiggle
In this indecipherable map
Called life

And we twist into pretzels
Trying to understand
These markings
Of our own making
Assigning meaning
To hieroglyphics
Forgetting their origin

Turn away, inward
Away from the
Psychedelic colors
Projections of a mad mind

Turn inward to that source
That illumines the glass
Of this mind
Turning it into a mirror
And know peace

—shubha

What is , but love ?

What is , but love ?

What clothes us, but love?
What unspools into nakedness , but love ?
What builds us , but love ?
What crumbles our self made illusions , but love?
What gives us voice, but love ?
What makes us choose silence, but love ?
What was, but love ?
What will be, but love ?
What is , but love !
And we will be bubbles that rise, burst
In a cauldron of simmering love .


—shubha

Tapestry

Tapestry

I weave myself together
From glimmer caught in tiny hands ,
From warmth of winter sun in honeyed bands,
From the coolness of incessant waves on hot sands
From the fluttering of ribbons in the wind over many lands
From the movement of all creation , that creates, expands
From the stillness that sustains it all , as base stands
I weave myself together
To offer to You
As a tapestry of many bands
So I may subsume , understand
That is You who permeates every colorful strand.

—shubha 

You In-spire

You In-spire

My eye jumps from roof to roof
As it sweeps the town 
Laid out in its sunset glory
Collecting the last light of the day
In a bowl of a valley
And comes to rest on the church spire
Glowing gold in the fading light

And when my mind’s eye
Jumps the many roofs
Of many thoughts
Collecting soot instead of light
Smearing itself in dirt
And collects the debris of waywardness

And by much cleaning , when I turned my vision
To the church of my heart, Your home
It’s spiraling spire , glowing gold
Inspiration spires up
As Your gift , Your calling card

—shubha

Free falling

Free falling

I teeter at the edge of a decision
Arms flailing to balance the pros and cons
Until the balance tilts in one direction
And I free fall into the repercussions
Of the decision, questioning the choice
But with every fall or flight
Every scar , every tale of delight
I gain in experience
And looking back the only decisions, I regret
Are the ones , to not celebrate the present one

—shubha

Spring stirrings

Spring stirrings

Somewhere deep inside
A bud of hope unfurls
One shy petal at a time
In response to the stirrings
Of spring all around me

A flutter of hope beats
To the wing of the butterfly
A stirring so still
That it passes gossamer thin
Over the thudding
Of an expectant heart

That perhaps this time,
The winter of my discontent
Is to pass

And my heart will blossom, once again
In the spring of Your joy


— shubha