His muffled voice breaks
the long stretches of silence
while his hand guided
young and untrained hands
practicing calligraphy.
Watchful and demanding precision
of copied texts exacting translation.
As he unbuckles the leathery tome
of secrets in a wooden chest.
Tradition, theology and religion.
Diaries, recipes, scientific notations.
Inventories, census, receipts.
Readings of narratives and poetry,
astrology, proverbs and magic spells.
The volumes of letters, last wills,
songs and words of blessings.
Spending hours and hours sitting
among the piles of pages digging
for clues and answers to mysteries.
The labyrinth of a culture. A treasure.
Each of the fragile pages a wealth
weightier than silver and the gold.
Piecing each fragment in a mosaic
mapping an ancient civilization
long forgotten. He believed, it was
here in his hands lies the fiber, sinew
and muscle of generations of man-
the society is ought to remember.
So he became a warrior, obsessed
with the written word wielding
weapons of passion and wisdom.
With his small army of juvenile scholars
continuing an unpopular legacy.
Waging the classic battle against time,
earth bugs, heat, rot and decay
slowly finding its way like marauders
pillaging the essence of our humanity
into oblivion and brink of extinction.
Having Said Enough
Posted in Books, Current Affairs, Literature, Memoirs, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Social Commentary, Society, Technology, tagged acceptance, again, argument, battle, best, bubble, burn, catch, cerbral, choice, coat, conduct, courtesy, cut, definite, disappointment, doubt, enough, etiquette, explanation, expression, fight, fine, five, flimsiness, habit, having, hear, heavy, human, intellectualization, invitation, left, like, line, lost, mind, myself, niceties, normal, over, page, phone, plan, poem, poetry, questions, repeat, requirement, said, say, see, somehow, sometime, stanza, stop, stupid, talk, time, tone, translation, understanding, undue, unsaid, upset, vexation, virtual, voice, war, win, words on February 17, 2012| 12 Comments »
Cut the line, if you do not want to hear what I’m saying.
Burn the page, if you do not like what you see.
I don’t have the habit of repeating myself
over and over again just to be understood.
Somehow, there will come a time that explanations
are not required. Questions are left unsaid
out of courtesy, while your mind is bubbling
with doubts, you need to accept me of who I am.
Like this, we talk on the phone without expression.
The heavy tone of your voice means a disappointment.
You’re definitely upset when I can’t catch you. And you
can’t catch me as we are both lost in translation.
Let us stop this virtual war. This undue vexation
of words coated in the niceties of being cerebral.
Can’t we simply talk as normal humans do,
caught in the flimsiness of conduct and etiquette?
You see, I didn’t plan to have more than five
stanza to this poem and keep on intellectualizing
on how stupid it was to win our every argument.
You know, sometimes you do not have to fight
every battles you are invited in. Just choose-
the best one. And argue with me. Fine.
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