@my best friend: the time for an old poet

leaf and life thought

The poet gazes afar as the two slowly walk,

Through a strait gate palm in palm they talk.

Now I am ninety-nine and you not younger dear,

Friend to friend, goodbye without fear.

Time to leave them all: sanctuary abode round the corner,

Old dreams of love and whimsy bliss that can not be

Reconciled with the ultimate Initiator and Sustainer of life

Artful tiled floors, Christmas tree, green attic, Jacuzzi in style, red waving palm, sunken secret garden, tinted glass canopies, white-washed walls, yellow brick steps and all.

Yes, we seem to have lived here all our lives,

Season to season, rain and draught, tears and laughter, colors and paleness, words and silence adrift as each decade drives.

I always liked to stay up all hours of the night,

Sitting alone by the green attic window star-gazing into the dim gentle light,

Crafting, designing, evaluating, fantasizing what mattered then,

A future of retreating retiring reviving resurrecting right.

Hearing perhaps a faint sobbing in your sleep,

Urging we must leave and sail across the vast blue deep.

Looking for a blue hope bird in springtime great beyond,

Never again shall we be contented with mere earthling’s song.

Hence in this poem I now give all to time,

To our new home the young country soon we come.

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sometimes we just have to go

Sometimes we just not go the Serene way.
sometimes we just have to go
often both of us could know
it’s a season to let go
behold all love must forego
for a way ahead
a watershed
not a tear is heard
nor a sound is smeared
because we wear mascara
to celebrate the last gala
dancing to end our tango
no pretense
not perchance
lest we should cross each other’s way
lo beyond and faraway
still in pain
all in vain
deep in love
that won’t just go

roll over transformation onto his next winter dream

Transformation of a nerd

i wake to find this stranger’s face
so close i fear such lack of space
what are you doing here? i ask
familiar yet looking like a wrinkled mask

fifty years have passed and you never notice?
take a look you are not nineteen boy
the mirror is taken aback by my daily ploy
boy o boy you really need less practice

messing toothpaste all over my face
“i love her i love her not i love her i love her not…”
write a proper message of your life
not on mirror marinated with mint and old spice

boy, fifty years have long gone by and you don’t even notice

o wake up boy grow up
looking boldly into the mirror i see snowy ice cream
by chance someone must have overturned onto my temples their cup
not my favorite flavor i sigh and roll over

onto my next dream

P/S: this is a conversation between a dreamy boy who refuses to grow up and a mirror which reflects the boy fifty years from now.

a shore beyond love: a haiku (and a prose)

Distance stretches love

shore to shore I call your name

my heart filled with pain

~~~~~~~~~~~~“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby) I shall always stand here and gaze across this span of vast distance. The water has receded. Perhaps I shall cross over. By foot or by heart. 

Dearest love, he penned: a haiku (and a prose) for someone who has turned his world around

Solo or in pair

klee-ew huoh-houh-huoh long mew

transmissions received ~~~~~~~~~~~~While onshore before he set sail he heard a phone ringing,  but when he picked it up he could hear people talking not particularly to him. Then the call was terminated. He wrote this letter and set sail alone. “Dearest love: You sent a WhatsApp text to say that you will go away to another continent for sometime. I replied,”Okay.” I added, “Please let me know you have arrived safely.” You replied, “Noted.” I also wrote, “I will pray for your safety.” You replied, “Thank you.” You said you will leave at 3am this morning so I set the alarm to wake me at 2:30am. I woke before that and WhatsApp called and messaged you. But there was no answer. I noted that the last time you read my text was 1:58am. Why did you not reply my internet call or text? After trying several times I realized that I did not take into account our different time zones! I also did not realize the difficulty of not having internet access while traveling across continents. Eight hours later you managed to text me in the airport just before you departed on a connecting flight. “Arrived safely at _____,” followed by the time of the flight and estimated arrival at the destination. Based on the scanty information of departure time and the two airports, I managed to track your flight so I knew you have finally landed safely.

While waiting for your next call or WhatsApp text I decided to write a very short email. “Dearest: One of the three phones rang but i heard noisy talking. Anyway i believe you are safe and well. Love, ______.” In case you happen to have access to email somehow. I exercised and showered with the phones but they remained silent. Strange that when you are easily accessible by internet call or WhatsApp or gmail I sometimes spend a whole day without  contacting you. I do not count the time until I realize that I may not be able to connect to you. Then I sort of worry. For hours I do nothing but trying to guess where you are.

I recall the time before internet when we wrote long letters because telephone calls were too expensive across ocean and continents. I wrote a letter a day and you said you often received a bundle as the postman did not call daily. Later I was posted to a distant city and saved my lunch allowance for our daily evening long distance call. When I returned you were posted to a rural place separated from the city by long and winding treacherous hilly country roads and I woke at four every Saturday morning and drove slowly at snail-speed for hours in pitch dark often braving the heavy monsoon rain which reduced visibility to zero. I did the same on every Monday morning on the return journey. Finally you succeeded getting a posting near your hometown in another city across the sea. I too got a posting across but in another city. In those days driving between the two cities took about ten hours return. So I wrote letters everyday. I spent a fortune on phone calls too. I flew sometimes. One New Year Day I received your call. You said, “Listen, you need to make a decision. Either we break up or we marry.” I replied, “Are you proposing to me?” You said, “Yes. Give me your answer and a confirmed wedding date within two days.”

Looking back I can see that the main reason why we decided to get together for good was so that we could communicate without having to battle mountains of hindrances to our highly compatible transmission and receiving frequencies and wave-lengths. The difficulty to connect our thoughts hastened the decision process. Human being must connect. In those days there was no social media like Facebook or Twitter. Not even smart phone. Mobile analogue phones were expensive, yet large, heavy and clumsy, newly introduced in the market, more for sales persons than anyone else. No smart phone. We really needed to communicate so badly. But not with just anyone. Many years have passed since then and we now rely on short utterances called chat typed and received on a tiny screen of a phone named smart. I cannot write letters anymore. Not the ones I used to take heart to write. Having said all that I want to say in short forms daily several times on screen, I seem to have run out of energy and imagination. Browsing through the internet I found this following passage which aptly describes what you are and will always be to me. The writer has said it so well that any addition on my part will be superfluous.

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”  (quoted from Bob Marley)

I am still waiting for your call. You are the someone who has completely turned my world around. I am sailing solo here, in search of perhaps a beautiful picture for you. Love, yours always.

perfect love, he wrote again: a haiku story

the rock

He went to the rock

in time to witness the waves

spitting spurting foams

~~~~~~~He thinks he should write this letter to her to report his whereabouts. “My dearest love:

You have heard that I come to the ocean to visit the rock. Yes, I have just returned safely to my well-heated room, warm, filled with festive food and drink, slept for eight quality hours, now feeling rested and contented despite having braved the somewhat physically taxing journey in this cold alone. As you will note in some pictures you will receive, the general look is sunny but the feel of the north wind is freezing and slashing over exposed skin like sharp razor-thin blades of ice. The ocean remains innocently blue like the clear uncluttered sky. But do not be deceived -the waves rage. Being completely trusting you will not ask why I choose to proceed with such a trip in the first place to such a desolate and void wilderness. Like before, you will look at the scars and marks on my limbs and shake your head gently and sigh softly, like a light breeze that brushes my forehead unobtrusively and soothingly. “Just look at you!” You will wash and mend the gaping new wound with clean running water, wipe with a swap, apply olive oil and then pray. “Don’t hurt the same spot again, okay?” You will urge me to be careful. But you will not tell me not to go away again. You will not ask me to retire from travel like others do. You will not put fear in me.

I just want to say how much you have lifted me and built me up by your kind silence. Indeed, the physical world (the sea is the world) is not what it appears to be. Things (living and otherwise) with evil intent may try to intimidate but they will be in vain when we stay fearless. Often they use sounds, movements, volume with speed, suddenness of onslaught, and other means with the purpose to bring fear. Who will fear? A ship without an anchor and a safe unshakable anchoring place will be in fear. A ship without a clear and accurate direction will have fear too. Because it will not reach its safe and sure harbor. Sometimes I lie in bed at night far away in a distant shore from your land and wander why you do not have fear that I will be lost.

Many years ago I read of a family printing thousands of handbills to distribute all over their country because the grand-dad went out to buy a packet of cigarettes and never returned. He had forgotten to come home. They are still looking for him. Year after year on his birthday they publish an open letter signed by all his family members: children, grandchildren and their spouses, appealing for him to return. at the time of this letter he would be close to 90 or more if still alive.

I once met a young ‘derelict’ who said he had traveled from his parents’ home across the sea to become a cook without success for two years until he had lost every cent. “Why do you want to be a cook when you have no qualification or experience?” I asked after hearing his brief account. I was interested to hear perhaps a touching story of a young person who would be cook. He answered plainly, “Because I think cooking is easy.” I tried to advise him, “Return to your parents. Maybe even for a short while.” But he shook his head. He said he could not afford to call them either. I found him a factory job which gave him free board and warm meals. When I next called they said he had left after a few days as he said he still wanted to be a cook. He seemed to have vanished. You know the story ending. I never found him. Perhaps he has returned to his parents’ home. Perhaps they too have been printing handbills and plastered posters all over to find their lost son. He would be in his forties by now.

You will not ask me why I bother to recall others’ stories in my love letter. I ask myself too. I can imagine the disappointment in the readers’ thoughts. There is not even a love phrase. What kind of love letter is this?  I am not the old man who will forget to come home. Neither am I the young man who has lost himself in his unreal dream. I suppose I can relate to the common factor of love and loss in a manner. Each man is given perhaps one or more loved ones. The pain is always in the one who wants to give love. The giver loves more than the receiver. In the case of the old man I like to think that he has truly forgotten his home and those who love him. In the case of the young man too. I like to think that they do not feel the pain of being left behind. Having loved and being made to stop is a sad thing in life.

Sometimes I hear and see fear in a person. He fears because he cannot perform adequately to earn love. Fear cripples. Fear makes one flee. He wants to flee being hurt. Some flee physically. Some mentally and emotionally. What can cast out fear? You know my answer: Perfect love.

I am not saying that you and I have perfect love for each other. I am saying that you and I have one Perfect Love. The Love that will never cause us to flee from each other. Even when I cannot perform to be worthy of your love, it does not matter. The same applies for you. Perfect Love casts out fear. My love for you will not base on your performance. Neither is yours for me. Many years ago I read this verse:

“Love does not demand its own way.”

It hurts. But it gives the material to sustain love. For a long long time to come. I believe. From your beloved. “

1 John 4:18 [Full Chapter]

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

John 15:9

[ Love and Joy Perfected ] “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

John 17:23

I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Colossians 3:14

But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

1 John 4:17

[ The Consummation of Love ] Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

Dearest son: a love haiku

(I might be gone sometime: a haiku to a son)

Hard to end goodbye

no rendezvous on earth yet

left sure not end word

~~~~~How to tell a young sunny cheerful vibrant boy what death is and why must all old people still die? How to make a bud newly sprang from thawing crust of frozen clay on the first day of spring, grow into a mighty tree overnight, with strength of deep roots and resilience that can only come from solid foundation consistently built and persistently held firm over tested time, to instantly withstand the imminent freezing cold and brutal wind and torrential storm flood sweeping down from the north? He starts writing a letter.

Dear beloved son: I might be gone sometime but not in words -only briefly in humanity life-span touching the end of line and migrating into another span in time and space and form and existence called eternity which has no end or beginning and where your mother and you will go too after ending each earth-span in time and space where the real happy and tearless rendezvous will take place and where we shall no longer say goodbye and you will never be alone or lonely as an only child because you will have countless brothers and sisters like stars in the sky.
“You ain’t very old!” You said rightly. True. But by the time you have grown up and read this letter I would have been very old like the patriarchs in the Bible. This letter is not about old age. It is about love in battle. I have read an article about seismology – the branch of science concerned with earthquakes and related phenomena. The Really Big One. I have copied and made some notes. Read and understand why I say I am talking about love in battle.
“4-6 minutes after the dogs start barking, the shaking will subside. For another few minutes, the region, upended, will continue to fall apart on its own. Then the wave will arrive, and the real destruction will begin…depending on location, they will have 10-30 minutes to get out (to higher and safer ground)…when the tsunami is coming, you run. You protect yourself. You don’t turn around, you don’t go back to save anybody. You run for your life…We can’t save them (the elderly, disabled and tourists).”
Preparation requires capacity and capability which must be consistently practiced over time at one specific terrain. The elderly, disabled and the tourists do not have these resources. Indeed even in ordinary everyday allotment of perceived limited resources for example health care the disadvantaged will ultimately lose out in the utilitarian based priority selection process. Like any disaster the time to save people from a tsunami (or any catastrophe) is before it happens. The devastation and the vast losses resulted are often due to inadequate preparation. How often do catastrophes of devastating tsunami or tropical typhoon magnitude occur? Frequency does not matter. Because an individual either encounters it or does not encounter it. Risk is either 0% or 100%. People like to believe that they are less likely to be caught in unfortunate events than others. It is called ‘optimism bias’, crime victims, smokers, gamblers, speculators or traders who think they are less exposed to losses. “What has this got to do with love?” You may ask.

Love does not align with a natural selection of the fittest process. Much as people believe otherwise, the love that overcomes all odds is not based on external physical selection but an internal invisible choice. Do you love or do you not love? Many think that love is fulfilled by not harming or causing harm to others. But even our inaction to save could amount to harm. Your mother would have no hesitation to whom she would even give her life. So I do too. Long ago we have made our vow and eternal covenant. I pray you remember yours on that day.

1 Corinthians 13 [Full Chapter]

[ The Greatest Gift ] Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. …

Precious love dies not: a haiku (and a prose)

nothing to declare
except love transcending soul
beyond mortal hate ~~~~~~~~~~He is determined to write a love letter despite having recently shed tears of shock and sorrow for  his beloved. In separate time and space two men suddenly lost their young and lovely wives, both mothers of very young boys. Both men believe that their loved ones have gone to heaven and they shall meet again. One brave young man declared to the killers, “My beloved wife shall always be with us, and one day our liberated souls shall meet together in heaven, but the gate of heaven will never open to you (whose souls are dead).”
As the traveler walks through the spiritual waste land of human numbness and despair, he asks, “Does love continue after death?” He remembers a book about a post-apocalyptic journey of a father and his young son across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth. Many of the remaining human survivors have resorted to cannibalism, scavenging for flesh. The boy’s mother, gave up hope and committed suicide some time before the story began. The man continued to raise up the boy as a human being and tried hard to cope with the minimum of whatever semblance of life left behind. At the end, the man too was no more. (Story from The Road)
The traveler asks: “Will the boy ever find and learn to love a love that transcends self and and rise above the whole world of bestial ‘human’?”
Then he remembers these last few lines of a letter (from the book Gilead) from a father (toward the end of his life on earth) to his very young son: “I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.”

Isaiah 51:11 New International Version (NIV)

 Those the Lord has rescued will return.
    They will enter Zion with singing;
    everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
    and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Revelation 21:4

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

a more lasting love: today’s love letter

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. ² Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. ³ And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.

⁴ Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. ⁵ And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. ⁶ Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.

⁷ Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. ⁸ But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life^[a] is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. ¹⁰ So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers^[b] does not belong to God.

Love One Another

love each other

¹¹ This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. ¹³ So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters,^[c] if the world hates you.

¹⁴ If we love our Christian brothers and sisters,^[d] it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates another brother or sister^[e] is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.

¹⁶ We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister^[f] in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?

¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. ¹⁹ Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. ²⁰ Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

²¹ Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. ²² And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.

²³ And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. ²⁴ Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.

(1 John 3 New Living Translation)