goodnight

Goodnight my love.  
I miss you 
I fall asleep and...
I dream of you 
grateful for 
the love that's come my way...
because of you...I didn't earn it
you just gave it to me. 
Thank you for making my life 
so special, fragrant, aglow
for making this blink in a vast universe 
larger than the sky 
deeper than the ocean
And I will always love you
I know...
And do remember that. 

immortals

never asked any god to measure the darkness

no maps nor trails to count these paths 

and when i make that final leap

it will be whence i came just ashes and rocks

shaky impermanence one day will vanish

a temporary memory for those that follow

so will you and each who's here today

even myths we embrace, all baubles hollow

behold skies, brooks and beauty profound

tall pines, warm beaches or nodding flowers

trees that lean out, embrace the sun

maddening beauty journeys on forever

few were promised gods and avatars

or only one who would be the end all

and they asked for allegiance and all your faith

for an outcome of peace before the final fall

so i will be gone and so what?
the answers unshaken, always been the same
perhaps my echoes, my thoughts live on
just a fading memory or not even a name

but i gave my love when i lived as one
grew a garden, tended life, and shed a tear
lived with dignity, found in gratitude
every moment's essence i held dear

if i made one life happy, one flower bloom
if i held a hand that was shaking in mine
if i soothed a soul filled with darkness, despair
such small victories made my journey divine

for i found the only god that i know
the best of our trials and travails of our days
the longest journeys, the harshest climbs
such unlikely heroes, for demons we slayed

it's alone a wonder this time, this life
my consciousness alive to a deep awe
for all that's in an accidental universe
that we came to be here and just now!

so the end will come and render life precious
immortality would abandon it without price
a life of hope, fire, learned grace
it's yours! in you! here now! in this life!

-Reena

Jan 27th 2015

rude one

when she comes, she arrives unannounced
uninvited and shameless
forces me to leave everything
pay no attention to anyone who needs me
forget my purpose, my goals, my schedule
but selfishly like an infant
demand every bit of my psyche,
scream for my attention
grab me and hold me tight
till she comes pouring out
like a lava that must
like an outpouring of rain
from a desperate, distended cloud
like the pressure only an earthquake can relieve
that's how she arrives on any day
no warning, no whisper, no preamble
she's here and i must get her down
this self-centered, ego maniacal one
my poem....

**********************************
-reena
may 29th 2012

Jungle

Jungle

The jungle, the jungle finds me everywhere. 

The jungle finds a way, its own road. 

Seeping through, melting out, tearing past 

whatever stands in its way. 

No passion, no compassion, no vengeance, no love could explain 

It moves because it must

Like gravity it pulls away

Like water it finds its way

No rocks, no walls, no pressure

Could stand strong in its wake

Like pain it must find air

I do hide it in this heart

Never giving it words or a face

But it comes screaming, tearing out 

Taking by storm one unsuspecting day

For the heart forgets and the mind may erase

But this body remembers every scar

Every cut, slight and bruise

And I run but the jungle finds me

Growing afoot to drown me 

Until I let the pain take me whole, some place far away...

Dec 25, 2014

Caring

Standing on the edge of my tenuous cares
Should I pause or throw them in the air
I want to leap throw caution away
I envy the precipice and yet I stay
Hesitating for this hundredth time
The lives we build, such fires sublime
Can I leave searching far and away
My dreams colored wild yet here I stay


-------------------
reena

jan 7th 2015

light

all at once the mirror showed me all
the pain and scars from a life
i had buried and bandaged
telling myself they were just fears

but then i washed up on shore
with a broken heart and no more tears
and there i sat day dreaming of a place
so far i could have imagined it

nothing near my life or fears
you broke my parts but the whole held together
i've put it all together somehow
yet the cracks show and sometimes ache

will it all come and haunt me again
or will i move ever so slowly towards light
a belief i lost in my own fate
no future or dream could have saved me then

but today is different, shiny too
a road i saw become firm and hard
the fog parted and the lights came on
i will walk away and meet my life...


-----------------
reena
Jan 5th 2015

nirbhaya and our metamorphosis...

Much has been said about ‪#‎Nirbhaya‬ since that fateful night of‪#‎December16‬ two years ago. We have expressed outrage, protested in the streets, cried for her parents, shamed her assailants, wrung our hands, moved on and in some ways ahead too. When her gruesome rape and murder took place two years ago it took the capital and really all of India - at least urban India - by storm. Petitions were filed, commissions initiated, the perpetrators arrested and new laws legislated. All moves in the right direction, but only the beginning of a reckoning long overdue.

#Nirbhaya became the lightning rod for violence against women in India, and about high time something did. A deluge of reactions ensued, albeit of many flavors. There were the usual nincompoop politicians, religious leaders and other "elders" of India who came out with their predictable proclamations amounting to, "it was her fault for being out at night, for being with a man, for wearing jeans, for owning a cellphone, for having a dream, for ....blah blah..." ad nauseum! But what was noteworthy was the shaming they received, especially from youth in India.

There were those who resigned themselves - most of them cynics from my generation - "this is how it is, nothing will change, and all we can do is tell our girls to be more careful...". I grew up in India so that did not surprise me. We are such pragmatists that we can almost always be counted on to take the easy way out. Telling our daughters to curb their freedom is so much easier than doing anything about such horrendous acts, lest we spend an extra minute pondering any value worth fighting for. Don't get me wrong. There is genuine and understandable parental concern at play when we tell our girls to be careful, not trust strangers, or not go out on lonely streets alone at night. Do note that Nirbhaya was not alone, nor on a lonely street. Also that more than 70% of sexual crime against girls and women is committed by men they know - often family members, neighbors, and trusted family friends! But even so, telling our women to be careful should be treated as a necessary - and hopefully temporary evil - while we expend our energies towards limiting if not ending the need for it. And that includes teaching our sons better, speaking out when someone is demeaning our girls and not letting our elders' traditions dictate how women are viewed. Telling women to limit their freedoms, should be seen as an unfair restriction we impose, NOT a burden that is theirs alone to bear, and their freedom NOT the source nor the CAUSE of the violence against them. That does not demand an environment that is perfectly safe - there is no such place - but let's not use some esoteric concept of perfection to stall progress.

There have also been those - some feminists included - who criticized our reaction by calling our attention to similar heinousness experienced routinely by rural/ Dalit/ poor women in villages, small towns -- victims who almost never receive justice. So why this reaction now? for this Delhi girl? They have a point and the complete lack of humanity meted out to women, and girls in villages and small towns is undeniable. But there is an important psychological and sociological phenomenon at play here. India is going through a huge economic and social transformation. There are employment opportunities now that are allowing women unprecedented financial and personal freedom. Nirbhaya represented that. She was an urban, middle class girl who had dreams. And yes she wore jeans and used a cell phone - those are important icons in India, if you know how to read symbols. Millions of middle class urban girls and women identified with her - and that was the crucial difference this time. Urban women have greater access to media, greater means to be heard and are often more vocal, and this garners them an unfair share of attention. That does not make it OK that non-urban/ poor women suffer injustice or that their suffering is any way less valid. But this is how cultural and political change comes about. The personal is the political. People sit up and take notice when it is someone they can identify with. So while we can wring our hands about how wholly inadequate this is, it is an irreversible start. I don't have any illusions about the speed with which change will come about - especially given the pathetic state of law enforcement - but many of the the preconditions for a transformation are present in India like never before, and that's reason to be hopeful.

Perhaps the thing that was most noteworthy, inspiring, and heart-breaking, in all of this gruesome mess was Nirbhaya's own parents' reaction - particularly that of her courageous father. When the media reported this incident without naming her per the law in India - ironically reflective of a vapid culture that heaps shame on the victim and exonerates the perpetrator - he came out openly revealing her identity. He reminded us that she was innocent, a girl with dreams AND the victim! He showed us how we should treat our daughters. He exhibited a more progressive, enlightened view of women than the VAST majority around him; many of them more educated, better off, and better placed. This from a man who worked doubly hard, sold his ancestral property in the village to support his daughter's dreams. He must grieve every day even as we move on with our lives, and he will die grieving. Such is the nature of things when children die leaving parents behind. We can't alleviate that. But perhaps we can prevent another family's suffering by bringing about change, even a miniscule change, whatever is within our individual reach. Perhaps all that amounts to is speaking up next time someone blames women for such violence, or writing a check for an organization devoted to such a cause, or something even more profound like raising our sons to have respect like Nirbhaya's father had for her.

I will light a lamp for her tonight. Join me.

‪#‎neverforget‬

In the meantime I offer you this poem I wrote for her in 2012...

http://arrivalsndepartures.blogspot.com/2013/03/owed.html 

---------------
Reena
December 15th 2014 in USA....

...it is already the 2-year anniversary of Nirbhaya's murder in Delhi on Dec 16th 2012....