But have you ever had a passing moment that renders you nostalgic for a place you have never been to? A smell or a tune that sounds familiar but you could not place a finger on where you experienced it, not even  if your life depended on it. Has a view ever flashed randomly before your eyes, deep into the night with a longing in your Heart. And you brush it off knowing you have never been to that place and so you blame it on the late hours and carry on?

I think this is what poetry is. A list of moments, of feelings, that can't be conveyed in words. Though we try. Of course. Because sometimes we need to write it down and read it to understand it ourselves. So we sit down with a pen in hand. We write but something remains missing. So we drop the idea but that feeling keeps nagging us at the back of our minds. Till it fades. Till we heave a sigh relief. Till it happens again and there we sit again. Against a type writer. No, poetry is not all about what I mentioned. But I do believe that poetry is what is written on the page and what remains missing. An echo imprinted on our brains. Something always gets lost in the process of translation of our feelings into words. Whether it be an exaggeration or not paying things enough attention.

Or, maybe that's just me and my lack of poetic skills.

But I have a list of feelings I never could write about. Though I have tried but something always felt off about it.

Like the first time as a kid I wondered how could something so vibrant be so close to death when I looked at the autumn leaves decorating the roads? Is that how we are? A bit dying every moment and we only notice that when we have become a shadow of who we were? Are we already gone by the time we are medically dead. I did not know. I was a child. Not that I have an answer now. But I'm now better at handling these moments of retrospect. If something itches at my heart, I make it a point not to scratch it. You see, I have long been accustomed to watching my mind ricochet between two ends. But oh, the naivety of a young mind. I did not understand it then. So I tried to write about it. I gave it a title "dead like the autumn leaves" never got much farther than that.


Some more moments.

Like the time I saw the sadness in my mother's eyes for what it was and realised there is nothing I can do to change it. For it was not the angry sadness, not volatile. It was the type of sadness that comes after you have cried yourself to sleep for many nights only to learn to accept it one morning. It was the kind of sadness we learn to live with. And that was the day I lost a bit of my innocence. A bit of my resolve. That was the first time I had walked in her shoes and was amazed by the amount of beating our heart can take. But it was not the first time my heart failed to explain what exactly it felt.

Now you would ask why is it that I write. Personally, most times, I don't know. I write because.. I just have to. It does not come to me at my command. It is just sometimes when I hold a pen, my hand moves on its own. Trying to find consolation in the non judgmental, patient care of the paper, in the tender caress of words.  

And so I think, poetry is always more than what's written on the page; more than what the poet has let out. Or, this could just be me. Have you ever had moments you tried to write about but all it gave was a pale description of how it was like to feel it?