After I finish inking down The evening silence into these Three or four barred stanzas – I don’t know which yet,

I shall sit in half lotus, turn off The lamp shining on this page, On this word, on this silence, And close my eyes to watch

The casual to and fro drift Of thoughts, just as I am doing Right now in this line, which may Next turn to consider the weight of my

Loneliness or that distant woman’s ache, Which I want to press into my chest, Where this morning, shaving, I saw Few flecks of white. How the body

Records what the mind forgets; The gurgle of time, the rustle of Breath, both which will flow on, After this poem gets forgotten, After daylight outside flails and fades.

Typist Notes: Even though I am one of the heathen (or in German "heiden") Bach refers to in one of his Sacred Cantatas that is currently playing, this is still some of most divine music ever written - the Western Cannon's response to Carnatic's Thyagaraja Keerthis, even though the theology is a little screwed up. Also thanks to Herr Jesu (Zorba's echo: and the Devil too!) for the fantastic music collection Dekalb Public Library offers free, to the saved and the heathen alike. Also growing up Illayaraja's "How To Name It" was a tape I played repeatedly. I still have that fifteen year old tape with me. Only now I see how much of Bach was brought over by Illu into Indian film music via, as KKK was fond of pointing out, classical ragas!!