Category: serenity

VERSE| THE WOODEN BENCH

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writing2 Comments

We have all, at some time or another been overwhelmed, overpowered, bested by our grief, anxiety and wretchedness. At those times, some of us have also been lucky enough to have that one place where we have, for a while, found some degree of quietude and peace. This is a tribute to those secret little places and spaces of comfort and healing in our lives.

There is this wooden bench I like
It’s not fancy, quite the common type
Cloaked in by the dappled canopy
Of a gracefully pirouetting Mara tree
It sits in the park like a dear old friend
Its well-worn embrace ever welcoming
A young couple walks up, caught in the grips of wrath 
Love is lost, it’s the wretched aftermath
Words are exchanged until the fury’s spent 
Frustration - Anxiety - Sadness - Silence
Then they sit down on the wooden bench …
Slowly muscles relax and nerves untense
Even if it is a passing interlude
Loads are lightened, hearts are soothed.

Wild flowers grow lushly around its feet 
Bobbing bright heads to earth’s vital beat
The bench sits there like a quiet friend 
It’s well-worn seat ever welcoming
A man sits down in a state of unease 
Holding on to his hat in an errant breeze
He picks up his phone and looks at the screen
The unlit glass reflects the tranquil scene …
He looks up and around him his brow somewhat eased
Fleeting albeit, he’s found his moment of peace. 

Songful birds and their terrestrial friends
Roam warbling and chittering around the bench
Hoping for a serendipitously fallen treat 
They browse busily around the seat
A wheelchair-bound man looks up at an overcast sky
His female companion already has water in her eyes
They sit side by side in worlds of their own 
Reminiscence weighs heavy of days that are gone
A mynah trills as a light drizzle falls
And a sweet petrichor briefly dispels the pall …
The man looks at her, takes her hand and she smiles 
For now they’re alright, tomorrow is still a while. 

I too have sat in nature’s restoring arms 
On that bench where she weaves her alchemical charms
I too have unburdened my hopes and my fears 
I too have laid my bursting heart bare
And I have heard her soothing murmurs 
That have quietened my deepest despair
I’ve looked into her soft eyes from that corner in the park
For a time, my soul too has emerged from the dark …
The clouds have parted, the sun has shone through 
And I’ve breathed more easily, sitting on that wooden pew.

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VERSE | IF I COULD

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments 
If I could live another life with you 
I’d talk of a few more things 
More palpably, more honestly with you
Of things that gnawed 
At my mind; at the way my gut wrenched 
Balling up inside, or even when 
The pit of my belly dissolved 
In a fluttering crush of butterflies 
I’d speak of love light-footed and pure 
The kind that knocks you to the floor 
And the next instant pins shimmering wings
On your tingling spine so you can fly
High high, breath-catchingly high!

I’d talk of heartbreaks too
That shred the organs into little bits 
Where the pain ripples in screaming peals 
My thoughts marking time with the cacophony
Where I stumble on my own feet 
Where I want to just lie down and feel 
Nothing for a while 
I’d share secrets that I have held deep inside
Now frozen, frigid, petrified
Mute scars of speechless agonies
Never named, never identified 

I’d also tell you that I loved 
My quiet, my solitude 
When it was just me in my room
Or just you and me
Sipping tea 
In the lounge, watching tv 
And then I’d tell you about the things 
That would make my tone-deaf heart sing 
A constant humming underneath
Beneath the sheath of my skin
Of peace that was soothing, softening
Of flame-bright hope and quiet joy 

I’d talk to you 
Of beginnings and of endings too
Some tragic some tender 
Of sometimes going under 
But always re-surfacing, I would 
Talk of spirituality, the ethereal kind 
That makes the hair stand on end 
The kind that quickens your breath 
That makes life and even death
A fleeting, splendorous enterprise 
A mystical trip with no finish line

And when your time here or mine
Was drawing to a close 
Together we would 
Strum those notes
One last time
Of all the things that we’d talked about
And all the times that we had spent 
And then I’d have held your hand in mine 
We would have laughed and we would have cried 
And we would have laughed again
Because nothing would have been left 
Unsaid, unfelt at the end.
Image: Cathy Jacobs

VERSE | SPACES

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I sit with my tea
The silence sits with me
Deafeningly 
Piercing my eardrums 
With its wordless cacophony 

It has made its forever home 
In the lounge where I now sit alone 
It’s been there a while
Years of rooting itself in place 
The air, the space 
Is soundless, still 
Like the world in night’s numbing vigil 
I look around for something 
Anything to cut through the dead air
Its atoms conspiring 
With the silence that sits everywhere 

And then I see it, a little plume
Floating, dancing in the room
From my mug
As the tea steams up
Severing the bond of silence and air
The desolate, deflated, joyless pair
Their essence once filled
With people now gone 
The moist vapor wafts in
Reaching into spaces 
Where images, reminiscences
Lie inert, forsaken
Loosening, thawing, warming them

I take a sip of my tea
I feel my spine tingle 
Familiarly
As I’m wrapped in the arms
Of rekindled memories.
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VERSE | I SEE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writingLeave a comment 
LISTEN TO THE POEM BEING READ HERE:  https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSeoMPHkF/
Spring turns to autumn which moults 
Into winter. The winds blow cold 
And the skies are a myriad shades
Of grey. The trees in their glades
Stand stark and naked. Their leaves 
Now mottled, dying underneath
Trampling feet.  Hurrying feet across
Paths well trodden and paths that are lost
In the gloom.  Winter’s dirge
Fills the spaces in between to merge
With the mist.  She throws a blanket
On the quiet world.  And then she touches  
My cheek. I turn my face away and she spreads
Her arms. I’m enveloped from toes to head
From right hand to left. I stand still
And let her feel.  She takes her fill
And then undoes her vapory hold. I finally see 
The path stretching clear ahead of me

VERSE | AUTUMN SKIES OF BLUE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Do you remember that autumn day
The day you came upon me in the park?
I stood in the shadows of the banyan tree
Preparing for a final flight of the heart 
You swept along so light and so true
‘Hello’ you said ‘this October sky is so blue!’ 

I was taken aback, I was agitated 
I stood there awkward, uncertainly 
You didn’t walk on, you stood there rooted 
Like an interfering angel on a samaritan spree 
I didn’t want to hear what you had to say 
I wished you’d sprout wings and just fly away 

So I looked through you, hoping that you’d go on
But you just ambled around my space 
The one I had for hours thought upon 
Where I’d finally leave this wretched place 
This life, this strife, this gnawing misery 
This heart that keened so relentlessly 

But you stayed and then you held my hand 
All this while I had not said a word to you
You had looked into the depths of my soul 
And you knew … my friend, you just knew!
I remember the withered grass you sat with me on
The sun was hidden, but your own light shone 

We sat and we sat, you by my side 
An angel, a friend, a beautiful stranger 
You parried with such elegant ease 
My monsters of desperation and danger 
Your warmth enveloped my aching heart 
That day you pulled me out of my abysmal dark 

Now here you lie in a white satin bed
Shrouded in scents of final farewells
I touch your hand, it lies cold and inert
Your eyes are closed, your breath is still 
I couldn’t save you dear friend, from final cessations 
But then you always were the angel in our equation.
Image: Veronika Vorontsova

VERSE | THINKING OF YOU

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Hold my hand when you feel lost
I’m no prophet, no celestial guide
But I can keep your hand in mine
Sit with you by your side

Hold my hand when hope has dimmed
I can’t move mountains nor the seas
But I can be with you a while 
For you to feel some peace

Hold my hand when your tread is heavy 
I’m not Atlas, I can’t displace
The burden off your weary shoulders
But I can carry it with you a pace

Hold my hand when life is joyless
I can’t delight you nor beguile
But I can try to ease your ache
Give your face a little smile 

Hold my hand and let me try
To soothe your heavy heart a bit
Life’s ups and downs will keep going round 
But when you want, with you I’ll sit
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VERSE | WINTERING

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The rubber grove is wintering 
Bare branches raised in quiet prayer
The trees in meditation
Their copse a little haven 
From the chill that’s spreading everywhere 
They sit together in the grove 
Yet solitude wraps each one 
In arms soothing, slumbersome
And there resting they will remain
Until earth wakens them again 

The fallen leaves have long since ceased 
To sit lightly on the ground 
They have sunk into their beds 
Laid down their tawny-russet heads 
Hidden away, they will not be found 
The trees remain skeletal, upright 
Waiting for spring to arrive
But until then they will not sing 
Stirring songs of vital things 
For now the grove is wintering 

Something deep inside of me  
Keens for this state of rest
To step out of life’s lusty choir 
For a while to quietly retire 
From her spring-loaded behest 
I want to hide, to lie low 
Take each hour nice and slow
Hibernate in my little den
Until I can smile at life again 
Like the grove I will be wintering.
Image: Donna Ashworth

VERSE | MIST

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The winter mist is rolling in 
Tracing umbras and penumbras 
On liquid walls conjuring 
Illusions of nostalgic things 
Like tapestries of sunny hills 
And shadowlands where 
valleys stretch 
Into soft concaves 
Of velvety days shimmering
At their edges, glimmering 
In the halos of lit up orbs
Glittering, pulsating
Watching and observing all 
Like eager sentries making sure 
The invading mist 
Covets no more 
Than the silver kiss 
That it bestows 
On each doorway 
As it tiptoes
In and then away 
Into the darkness further along 
All the while 
As it glides
Whispering its vapory song.

VERSE | FAR AWAY FROM HERE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, truth, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I want to walk into the sunset
Far, far away from here
Find a portal for myself, whisk away to somewhere else
Far away from here
But my dear what then?
What will become of you I think
I’m the crutch that you lean on
The weathered plank that you pace on 
Ironically your prop so hardy
Has grown a rift, become foolhardy
A fissure sprung in my core
Where it must mature into rings
Of mellow age and other things
But the cleft, a secret break
Hidden away has slowly swelled
With snaggy splinters, spiny edged
Letting in light that I had lost
Golden- yellow, shimmering, quiet
And it has cleaved the crack some more
More and more clearly I see the door
Where the gleam keeps pulling me
Towards the sunset thrilling me
Far, far away from here.

Image: Lucia Verdejo

VERSE | SEPIA STORMS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I hear the leaves rustle in the breeze
The gust picks up slowly, gradually
I hear the rattle of a window 
The one that lies loosely in its frame 
Like a watchful sentry 
Announcing the entry 
Of a wayward breeze 
That rolls in through its screen
To knock upon the door
At the end of the corridor

I walk out of my bedroom into the lounge 
The sentinel window 
Is now trembling, recoiling
Rattling its pane 
Warning of rain 
That will soon moisten  
Its face; gushing
Rushing, tearing
The dust off old memories
Renewing the pain 

I see the first flash of lightning and then 
The thunder breaks
The storm has arrived 
I look at it through the window 
Now lying quietly in its frame 
Soon the glisten of its pane
Swells into a stream flowing 
Down silently as I sit quietly 
With the sweet ache 
Of old memories again.

VERSE | CRESCENT MOON

On By Mahvash K. M.In Joy, poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The crescent moon shone overhead 
She wore a tilted smile 
I looked at her and asked wherefore 
She smiled so, was she shy?

Convinced that in her timid state 
She hadn’t heard my query 
As she perched in her cosmic grove 
Smiling lopsidedly 

So I cupped my hands around my mouth 
The lady was full of guile 
“O Crescent moon, you nighttime boon 
Give the world a real smile!”

She seemed to laugh and hid herself 
In some gossamer clouds nearby 
But her glowing curve still favored
The right side of the sky 

I watched her play hide and seek 
Showing a bit of her askew smile 
Floating, gliding through the clouds 
I was enchanted, mesmerized 

I turned away, this sensory play 
Called for a brew of tea 
Mug in hand, when I looked again 
She was beaming cheek to cheek.

VERSE | BULRUSHES

On By Mahvash K. M.In Faith, poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writing5 Comments 
The bulrushes are whispering 
Of secret things to come 
I hear their murmurs when I pause 
In life’s frenzied thrum 

Their words are indecipherable 
Like runes on ancient walls 
I know that I will understand 
After their prophecy befalls 

Still, I try this once to see
Through the hazy veil of time 
To prepare myself in ways that are
Ephemeral, sublime 

Everything happens when it must
Not sooner nor delayed
The murmurs become clearer as
We journey on, the sages say

But I try to circumvent 
What nature has prescribed:
A time and place for everything 
A cosmic order to all life

My mind rebels as I reach out 
To visions beyond the glass 
Willing a rip in space and time 
To see things not yet come to pass 

But the bulrushes keep whispering 
Their murmurs wafting on the breeze 
I know that when I’m ready
Then their secrets they’ll release.
Image: Bulrushes – Dorothy Berry-Lound