Poem: Immanence [Life lessons from the garden]

     

  Immanence

(Life lessons from the garden)

The soil said while I plow it;

       Be gentle dear, Yesterday

       I too was a human being like you!

Seed began to talk while I sow it;

      Unless you plunge yourself in death,

      You never know the beautiful depths!

Stem conversed when I tried to tame it;

     No matter how many worlds you grow into,

     You remain an earthling!

Roots rhymed in my ears, while I water it;

     When the routes go wrong,

     Roots must grow strong!

Leaf loved to say, while I pamper it;

      Throw yourself into serendipity

      It is the art of immanence!

Sky said when I sighed looking above;

      Look ; in-between your breaths

      Eternity inhabits!

    

   

     

Poem : The Color of Breath

 The Color of Breath

Some breaths are like that;
Cheaper than a toot,
Casual like Co2
bubbles up from the Coke!
Easy to be silenced,
Under the white knees!
 
White, Red, Yellow,
Brown, Black, Betwixt…
Yes, our breath has color,
Dear bro!
If you never noticed
Indeed, you're color blind.
 
On
A Pentecost day;
the day of divine breath,
It was for a worldwide sale!
The cheapo blackish sold out,
Like an alluring spectacle!
 
The curves, alleys,
Crossings, and stops at the red-light
uncannily resemble
branched out Lynching trees!
Strange fruits are the same!
Abysmal, abject black bodies.
 
Who wanna know?
Who wanna make the point?
On the top of the countless-
unbreathed blackish breaths,
The city is built, the life eructed!
Look; under your boot, a thick stench of blood!
 
Wherever the unbreathed-breaths suffocate,
Wherever the unsighed-sighs constellate,
Sure, there will be a Calvary or Tiananmen,
“And sooner or later,
the Tanks will appear!” [1]
Yet, We will sing the "Litanies for Oxygen."[2]
 
I have a Q to my Sister-folks.
And, I don't need an answer!
Don't get me wrong,
This is not a Yoga-talk
But a life & death-Query :
"When did you last have a full-length of breath ?"

 (Image courtesy: Immanuel Paul Vivekanandh)

 
[1] Giorgio Agamben, The coming community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota,2013),86.
[2] Indebted to my friend Fr. Patrick Saint Jean for this idiom. See his essay https://thejesuitpost.org/2020/05/after-george-floyds-suffocation-a-litany-for-oxygen-from-a-black-jesuit/