Waiting, Listening, Thinking: Poem

Waiting, Listening, Thinking

Waiting day by day
In the only possible way
The only plausible path
Lies straight, like an arrow
However rocky and narrow.

Oft in sundry guise
I dreamt of sunny skies; 
Reflecting on life and its turns; 
But to my great surprise
One learns and learns and learns.

Breathe the air, smell the wind; 
The earth has a heart and a mind; 
All that remains in the end
Is the love that we had to spend; 
All that remains when our lives are done
Is the earth, the sky, the stars and the sun.

Copyright: Rani Turton

This Emptiness Within: Poem

This Emptiness Within

This emptiness within, an utter stillness that could,
Would, should remain transfixed by eternity

Not a sunyatian stillness not the perfect void
A void, no, rather devoid
Not a perfect vacumn not even the space
To fill up a space that

Silences and stillness from analysis
Springs nought; not the naught but the knot
And the stillness and the silence in empty hearts
As far from perfection as existence
As far from existence as perfection
From where perfection springs
From the depth of the naughts

This emptiness within, then as still
As far from perfection's existence
As from perfecting existence

Transcends and permeates the fickle uneasy mind
Leaving mind and thought and emotion far, far behind.


Copyright 2008 Rani Turton

Blazing Suns Once Burnt Me: Poem

BLAZING SUNS ONCE BLACKENED ME

Blazing suns once blackened me
My soul was bright
I watched the moon dancing
With the clouds at night

Cold winter wind bleached me
That was my misery
My soul became dark
A sad lonely destiny

I whispered and moaned
My life seemed thus sealed
My mind fled thither
Into wounds never healed

Copyright: Rani Turton

The Poet As In Exile: Poem

The Poet As In Exile

The mind moves, the way hands do
To touch a beloved's face;  to feel within
The soul, the thoughts, the skin.

The mind, sometimes heavy, lacks the shine
Of the freshly polished vase
The mind, saddened by its exile
Tries to leave the poet behind.

The mental, the metal,the marital, the martial
Worlds seem to be in fusion;
And then ultimately comes
The anguish, the joy or the confusion.

Footsteps around the world;
Standing over the Seine
Clouds in the water, and nothing
To guide me even then.

Like any other poet in exile
Destiny seemed knotted like a rug
Persian-perfect and that thought,
That absurdity  finally made me smile.

Copyright: Rani Turton

My Mind, in Blinding Light: Poem

MY MIND, IN BLINDING LIGHT

Waits, waits, in a silence that is as heavy as pearls.

Waits for the lines and lanes of destiny to redefine
And refine; when the refined mind
Silently doubles and doubletalks itself out of rational thought;
Waits for the light to go, to disperse itself after the dark;
When the eyes can refocus and see
The difference between can and would be.

And destiny weaves her loom,
By blinding light or darkest gloom.

Copyright: Rani Turton

My Mind Has A Mind: Poem

My Mind Has A Mind

A calm surface: a world within a world.
My mind, at times, turbulent, savage and contrary
Just at the sound of a simple word
Gallops like wild horses across the prairie.

Oft I longed for calm; for a magic balm
To protect me from various kinds of harm;
Oft I yearned for tenderness:
Life was a game of dice or chess.

Moved from space to space.
Tumbling and wasn't it humbling
Trying to find a minute space
In my mind's mind's universal place?

My mind told my mind
Don't leave me alone;
Life is long and my destiny unsigned;
My mind with my mind, then intertwined.

Copyright: Rani Turton