The Prayer Mat

A symbol

Of the mobility 

Of Faith

"All the world is

A place of prostration"

All spaces 

A place of 

Meditation

This simple piece

Of rectangular 

Cloth makes 

The world 

A home and a 

Remembrance

That night 

She had forgotten

In her haste 

To not lose

Time, Or receding 

Daylight 

This valuable 

Piece of cloth

And as her 

Head touched the

Wooden parquet floor

And the sun slowly subsided,

She hoped the Faith

In her heart 

Would spread

Like a carpet of 

Protection and comfort

This act, so reassuring,

Heartwarming,

Paradoxically,

Uplifting.

Attached to Me

Do you not yearn for your bright-eyed stare

Which made the world seem like dazzling light and wonder

And let you forget as soon as your gaze was distracted,

Or your fumbling grasp that tightly clasped onto a finger

But not onto anger or hurt,

Chubby growing muscles that found challenges stimulating

And not a gateway to anxiety or self-pity,

Strong angry voices could evoke temporary discomfort

But no memory of the sharp words your parents exchanged remained

The maturation of neurons leads to the inevitable

Attachment, memories, emotions, ambitions, disappointments

The more of which we have, the more we are compelled to strive

Not just for self actualization, but for the attachments we

Believe lead us to love and identity. Such fluid yet enchanting ideas

In a temporary world based on arbitrary values we

Hold onto our fantasied ideals and what is more

We fight our own wars in their name

Intelligence gives us more to care about,

More to lose, more to believe we own

More to say is Me

And ego preservation is one of the most powerful

Forces, for good and otherwise,

That increasingly binds us to survival as we Live 

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face

Is so much more than she could imagine, or realise

In that moment.

One glance reveals a soft endearing sweet tenderness,

Too easily crushed

An involuntary blush in her cheeks,

Is the beginning of many a daydream

A squint in deep dark eyes,

Reveals an intelligence that could fill galaxies

And could be the secret to unlocking her desirous laugh

A downward glance is surely both sides of a precious coin,

Shy idiosyncrasies and a wit that is bright as the noon sun

The turn of a head belies some of her underlying steel

At this the man becomes aware of the danger

What can enchant can hurt, what hurts feels hurt

And yet this thought is quickly displaced by the promise

Of hearing her voice. Words  are the sixth dimension that

Could confirm, or forever abolish the Above.

What a Woman sees in a Man’s face,

Is not to be revealed, as yet…

The Unrightness of written rites

There's something ridiculously ironic

About pens zigzagging across color coded pages

Symbolising all we've had, them and I

As if these reams of scattered phrases

Are meant to be their rite of passage. I would rather

Some perception of mine follow them through the examination door

Where they're not behind a desk but rather in front of a wheel

Steering a life, a career, livelihoods, families, organisations,

And their own development

And even if in one moment out of a hundred thousand some concept, 

Remark, realisation is brought to life

My next decade of teaching will be indebted

Definitively in my mind, 

One's mark is not quantitative. For either of us...

ETA: ........

Worship, in its serene awareness, is a journey

The journey that we were all waiting for

And perhaps overlooked in the singular obsession

With a destination. Our everyday illusions of destinations,

Of “arriving”, conflicts with our natural purpose

This anxiety about the destination obscures the journey

So that the Arrivals Lounge is filled with senseless ghosts

And in the striving, dungeoned crevices of the earth

Live those aware and mindful and free