In the last two days, I have been writing a few poems as a response to some evocative photos taken by my friend Joao on his ranch in the Brazilian country side - all of trees against the horizon as night falls.

And in this process the central question that I am grappling with is that even when paradise is so close at hand, why do the feelings of pain (both mental and physical), agnst, and loneliness persist in our lives? We possess/ or given few things (perhaps many things), and yet why are we are still unhappy?

Dante's "Inferno", in English translation, which I am reading to sleep, for the past few night, perhaps, will provide another direction to reframe such questions, as I descend with Virgil, Dante's guide, into the seven circles of Hell. But for now it is time to hit the road for the daily run - shedding salt in one fashion or the other is good, if not as tears as sweat.

Photo by Joao

Light recedes.

So do blood & breath In the pained fields of memory.

You stand alone with your Incomprehension and blindness

Seeking consolation For things that can’t be explained.

Observe how the tree goes within itself, And becomes a talisman for the winter sky.

You too must learn.

Photos by Joao

Don’t look away. Now that the day is ending,

We don’t have much time In the continuum of time

Before distance between us Grows, and we recede again

Into the masks of strangers, hoping To meet later, perhaps, on a street

Corner somewhere in paradise Or in purgatory on our way down.

Don’t look away As the shadows of our veins

Embroider the sky with a story. Your story. My story.

Also this may be the appropriate music to go with these words.