Dream of the East

In a field, I saw a great Guru of the Akali Nihangs, riding on his gray horse, wearing the Dastar Bunga upon his head, and the electric blue Khalsa Swarupa over his body. His eyes, dark and piercing, gazed at me from his handsome dark face. Around his wrists were six silver chakram, and a kirpan in its silver scabbard rested at his side. He spoke a language of a thousand tongues, and I stood petrified. More and more demonstrative he became in his speech, urging me, demanding me, but to what? Finally, he let out a great yell, kicked his horse and galloped away. I watched him recede into the distance, toward the great sun setting in the west. When he had disappeared completely, darkness reigned, and the stars rode across the sky like the great warrior Gurus of the Akali Nihangs.

Poem Heard on the Shores of Mystic Lake

I. Introduction

Like wind-born words from a faraway country

in a language like that of the sonorous sea

this poem arrived as I lay in the golden hour

beside Mystic Lake, amidst somnolent dreams.

Troubled by thoughts of loves I had squandered 

out of carelessness and foolish pride,

I hadn’t slept the night before and I saw visions

as the water rippled beneath the sunlight.

Women I saw, dressed in Victorian dresses, 

being helped into carriages by men in suits,

and soldiers upon their silver horses riding,

blowing their trumpets in victorious pursuit.

So beautiful it was, I strained so as not to fall asleep

for I knew that an empty blackness awaited me there,

and once I’d waken, I’d have to return to the life

whose burdens and responsibilities I hated to bear.

But my eyes were so heavy, and I could not resist.

And just as my eyes were beginning to close,

this poem was whispered into my ear,

and as if I’d been electrocuted, I awoke.

I stood and, full of vitality, ran back to my home

where I took up my pen and wrote down this poem.

Now, I offer it to you, my friend, as one who, so it seems, 

is bound by chains to his life, and to his pen:

                    II. The Poem

Dreams are fickle, flighty and fleeting.

Conjured as quickly as they come to quiescence,

like a tempest or zephyr they pass 

in their own singular and mysterious cadence,

always leaving behind a changed mind—

more aware of death and more awakened

to the beauty and brevity of life and its pleasures

which are manifold and ever nascent.

And who’s to say whether a dream of day

which comes to us in the night

is not the soul’s way of telling us

to be bold and walk out into the light?

Or whether a dream of falling to our doom

is truly a warning from our soul

to live our lives to the fullest 

before we die and pass from this world?

It is up to us to decide the meaning behind our dreams,

which ones we let go and which ones we follow,

though we may never truly decipher them

and though they might bring us only sorrow.

But whether our dreams bring us misery or joy,

there is wisdom to be gained from all.

They teach us to linger long in what is healing

and to rise up quickly when we fall.

 

Go Ahead, Weep

Go ahead, weep

for all of life’s fleetingness.

See how quickly the tears,

pregnant with the crux

of your pain, dissipate

and disappear forever?

These tears, blessed 

by the priest of your sorrow,

baptize your weary eyes,

and tomorrow’s sun, though

we cannot see it,

is already on the rise.

Its light, like a bullet,

ricochets off the moon

and pierces the eyes,

emptying them of tears.

Oh sacred moment!

You pass through our hearts

like water through a sieve.

If we could but grasp you

and keep you with us,

surely even the stars then

would seek our counsel

and make wishes 

upon our luminous souls.