Let us not keep our secret,
secret any more!

Thousands have read your poem,
from your tributary, they have drunk.

So I am re posting once more
to remind grandmother,
so many
you,
adore.

I will not stop
till ten
thousand new admirers
have you paid homage.
then I will
              post it again.


~~~~~~
Oct 6, 2013
The Banyan Tree (A Tribute to Sally)
I am a man, grandfather to four.
Adherent to the same religion,
Poetry.

Breathing through mine eyes,
Exhaling carbon words,
That with time and pressure become
Poems, verbal musical notes upon life.

Each motion, from tiny to grand,
A capsule of expression,
That if examined under microscope,
Familial DNA, interconnected tissue,
Discovered, tho logic says,  
Time and distance render impossible.

But this is a diamond
This is a writ to be slipped
Upon the finger, the heart, the essence,
Of the only Banyan tree I have hugged.

This poem but a fig,
In the cracks of kindness,
The crevices of caring,
It has slow germinated.

You dear, Sally,
My host,
A building upon I can lean,
When wearied spirits uproot
My surficial composure.

Your seeds carried from east to west,
By a fig wasp, a bird unknown,
An ocean voyager, of indisputable vision, strength.

This seeded messenger, word carrier,
Supplanted in me, and your pupils,
Whose very names breathe poems,
In others too, like me and so many,
Seeds to become new roots, but you,
Our Host official and forever
Planter of trees of loving kindness.

You already know with love and affection,
I call you Grandma Sally,
And when you ask, beseech,
I cannot refuse.

Together we will will banish the sad,
Acknowledge we, that life's ocean,
A mixture of many, even sad, a necessity.

But I promise that will turn it into
Something simple, something good.
For you have asked and I answer you
Right here right now - your wish,
My objective, deep rooted like you,
Like an old banyan tree,
Your roots spread far, spread wide.

So some eve, when to the beach, to the sky
You glance, smile, no matter what, troubles dispersed,
For the reflection of you, seeds, full fledged trees now,
Bending skywards, in search of your rays of expression,
Your maternal wisdom rooted, spread so wide, globally,
All over this Earth, is visible from your
Beloved Philippines.


---------------------------------------
In her own words..

I am a widow,
with five remarkable granddaughters....
all beautiful, intelligent girls.
It is such a waste not to write....
each morning that unfolds is filled
with things to write about....
the people, the birds,
the trees, the wind,
the seas,
everything we set our eyes on,
they are all
poetry in motion.
Life itself is poetry,
I always have pen and paper within reach.
My past experiences are a
never-ending source
of ideas and words for my poems....
I shall write until time permits me,
"til there's breath within me."
-------------------------------------------------
A banyan (also banian) is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte (a plant growing on another plant) when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges). "Banyan" often refers specifically to the Indian banyan or Ficus benghalensis, the national tree of India,[1] though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a characteristic life cycle...
Like other fig species (which includes the common edible fig Ficus carica), banyans have unique fruit structures and are dependent on fig wasps for reproduction. The seeds of banyans are dispersed by fruit-eating birds. The seeds germinate and send down roots towards the ground.

The leaves of the banyan tree are large, leathery, glossy green and elliptical in shape. Like most fig-trees, the leaf bud is covered by two large scales. As the leaf develops the scales fall. Young leaves have an attractive reddish tinge.[6]

Older banyan trees are characterized by their aerial prop roots that grow into thick woody trunks which, with age, can become indistinguishable from the main trunk. The original support tree can sometimes die, so that the banyan becomes a "columnar tree" with a hollow central core. Old trees can spread out laterally using these prop roots to cover a wide area.

Vanished are the veils of light and shade,

Lifted the vapors of sorrow,

Sailed away the dawn of fleeting joy,

Gone the mirage of the senses.

Love, hate, health, disease, life and death

Departed, these false shadows on the screen
    of duality.

Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, whirlpools
    of melancholy,

Melting in the vast sea of bliss.

Bestilled is the storm of maya

By the magic wand of intuition deep.

The universe, a forgotten dream, lurks
   subconsciously,

Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine.

I exist without the cosmic shadow,

But it could not live bereft of me;

As the sea exists without the waves,

But they breathe not without the sea.

Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep,

Present, past, future, no more for me,

But the ever-present, all-flowing, I, I everywhere.

Consciously enjoyable,

Beyond the imagination of all expectancy,

Is this, my samadhi state.

Planets, stars, stardust, earth,

Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms,

Creation’s moulding furnace,

Glaciers of silent X-rays,

Burning floods of electrons,

Thoughts of all men, past, present, future,

Every blade of grass, myself and all,

Each particle of creation’s dust,

Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust,

I swallowed up – transmuted them

Into one vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!

Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by unceasing meditation,

Which blinded my tearful eyes,

Burst into eternal flames of bliss,

And consumed my tears, my peace, my frame,
  my all.

Thou art I, I am Thou,

Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!

One tranquilled, unbroken thrill of eternal, living, ever-new peace!



Not an unconscious state
Or mental chloroform without wilful return,

Samadhi but extends my realm of consciousness

Beyond the limits of my mortal frame

To the boundaries of eternity,

Where I, the Cosmic Sea,

Watch the little ego floating in Me.

Not a sparrow, nor a grain of sand, falls

    without my sight

All space floats like an iceberg in my mental sea.

I am the Colossal Container of all things made!

By deeper, longer, continuous, thirsty,
  guru – given meditation,

This celestial samadhi is attained.

All the mobile murmurs of atoms are heard;

The dark earth, mountains, seas are molten liquid!

This flowing sea changes into vapors of nebulae!

Aum blows o’er the vapors; they open their veils,

Revealing a sea of shining electrons,

Till, at the last sound of the cosmic drum,

Grosser light vanishes into eternal rays

Of all-pervading Cosmic Joy.

From Joy we come,

For Joy we live,

In the sacred Joy we melt.

I, the ocean of mind, drink all creation’s waves.

The four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light,

Lift aright.

Myself, in everything,

Enters the Great Myself.

Gone forever,

The fitful, flickering shadows of a mortal memory.

Spotless is my mental sky,

Below, ahead, and high above.

Eternity and I, one united ray.

I, a tiny bubble of laughter,

Have become the Sea of Mirth Itself.

darkness signals the
retreat into
the shell
of sea-side
sounds.
they whisper
innermost thoughts
of blindness and
profound seconds
of suspended
fallen flowers.

the recluse
can see more
in the deepest night
than the lightest
day.

thoughts circle with
the stars, as the
atrophy of apathy
begins
and the menagerie of
faltering frowns
follows.

My armory is in the amorous corner of my brain,
dexterously I press the button of my attack missiles-
on love mission, as soon as she advances all of a sudden
making me counter her attack, directed to my heart,
aiming with her blazing eyes, that hit the bull's eye of the target.

Today,
This tree was the very picture
Of a pair of birds
Who had a fight after mating.

You will never understand
The eagerness of this tree
In making every morning a new one
Or daily showing me a new movie,
However I try to describe it
One day
Leaves, that cry
“don’t go” “don’t leave”
To the wind
That passes by

Another day
Of shooing cats feasting in the shade,
On fish bone, from someone’s leftover meal,
After dribbling pigeon-droppings from a branch,

Another day
The tear-filled eyes
Of its own branch
That cries
And supplicates the sun
To heal its wound

Another day
Of its own sister branches
Or, in human parlance, wooden chairs
That have become prostitutes;
On which strange people sit casually.

One day
The Bihari
Who is scared stiff of his lord,
And who runs every time a wind blows
To sweep away the dried leaves
Which the wind has killed,
Having made violent love to them.

On yet another day,
The fruits that laugh their heads off
Along with the little blossoms that laughed once |
At the silver-blue sky

On still another day
The tap root
That suddenly burst into tears
Gazing at the dusk
That draped golden strands on boughs and twigs

On yet another day,
The aged middle-portion of the tree
That unveiled the hitherto unexposed
Moss-green nursling
And prayed that it be named
Another day before this,
Had made me sad
By asking
“Are you wont to see
the other tree-friends
Throughout the countryside ?”

Had made me heartsore
By asking me
“Would you forget me?”

Once, have asked
Whether I would point out
The mother-bird
Who sowed the seed after she ate the fruit
I have made myself broken-hearted  |
wondering
Where or how mother was.

At the moment
When the mind gets shaken up
And becomes even more fragile,
In the memory of
Some trees
That have helped some lives thrive,
Have given shade,
Given oxygen,
Crucified,

O tree,
I am hugging you,
Giving you
A frozen, but still very passionate kiss
With the Alloyed numbness of death and life :
A tree-kiss

I tried to draw you but i could never do it justice.
I just couldn't record your perfect sadness.
Nor the smile that wouldn't crack through that day
I couldn't etch this paper with the outlines of your face.
Those outlines i traced a thousand times that night.
with my eyes.
trying to make sense of them.
You told me i couldn't change them.
And somehow i knew it before you spoke.
It weren't that the edges of your face were broken.
They could never be.
Not ones so beautiful as those.
Sure, you have your little imperfections -
your hair falls oddly, sometimes,
the small dot on your nose,
divots around your mouth when you frown-
but i love you with them.
And even think most of them are beautiful.
Though i never could bring myself to like those divots.  . .
I guess because i never liked it when you frowned.
You'd tell me i needed  more than luck to cheer you up,
but that didn't change the way my heart wanted to make you smile.
I can recall only rare occasions when i did not have that desire,
even those were just occasions it was underneath another emotion,
a darker one, a heavier one i'd trade away any day to make you happy.
I knew i loved you that night.
It made me ask some hard questions.
Are we bad for each other?
Should i hate myself for this-
for what i do to her?
Not if you were worth it - but if i could stand it to stick around
but that answer didn't matter,
I'd do it even if i couldn't take it.

Increasingly distorted memories
   slowly succumbing to darkness
Some fallen, some forced into
   the oubliette of my subconscious

Figures of the past linger tentatively
   before receding into shadow
Familiar strangers they do seem
   as if merely remnants of dreams

The looking glass of childhood friends
   mirrors an unrecognizable effigy
An idealized reflection of a former self
   unflinching in its accusatory glare

Whispers persist from imprisoned depths
   for I am silently being recalled to life
Somehow I've forgotten how to be
   the only person I've ever wanted to be

Somehow I've forgotten how to be me

It is easy to detect
detection of the rules you neglect
neglectful of what you protect
protection of the invisible object
objection to what others select
selection of the list that's checked
checking for a way to connect
connection lost, has an effect
effecting words that were direct
direction lost