Kashmir came alive this evening. It was just a voice, yours. But as it cleaved the cool moonlight night, boat hulls were cleaving the waters of Dal Lake, O Friend.

I stilled my voice but that was not attention enough. I should have silenced my heart till you were done and heard the murmurs of blood rushing over all of Kashmir's roads, O Friend.

Who will console me when your sorrow reaches my shores? Will my voice be heard over gunfire? Give me your eyes so that I may see what you saw and then open your hands to receive my tears, O Friend.

Two young boys surface and float in my dreams, six women stand in a circle blood streaming from between their legs, dogs clawed their clothes to shreds, an old man stands mute, with a photograph of his son, so tell me how do I begin to map death here, O Friend?

The moon moves in clean arc with so much certainity, will it be able to tell as much to that young solider with a false swagger if he will live to see another morning, O Friend?

Who will answer and who will call? Green waves break and eyes wait anxiously at doors, at windows, wondering who will come back and who will be lost for ever to the darkness of this night? Lend your voice and answer them, O Friend.

Please don't become silent!

For J, who gave me the voices for this poem about 2 weeks ago.

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling Traveling, traveling, traveling Looking for something, what can it be Oh I hate you some, I hate you some I love you some Oh I love you when I forget about me I want to be strong I want to laugh along I want to belong to the living Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive Do you want - do you want - do you want To dance with me baby Do you want to take a chance On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do Is to bring out the best in me and in you too All I really really want our love to do Is to bring out the best in me and in you I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you I want to renew you again and again Applause, applause - life is our cause When I think of your kisses My mind see-saws Do you see - do you see - do you see How you hurt me baby So I hurt you too Then we both get so blue

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling Looking for the key to set me free Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling It's the unraveling And it undoes all the joy that could be I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun I want to be the one that you want to see I want to knit you a sweater Want to write you a love letter I want to make you feel better I want to make you feel free Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Want to make you feel free I want to make you feel free

from Joni's fantastic album Blue. It has beautiful guitaring and singing. And this is a song that is a true reflection on love and the whole process behind that.

"Oh I love you when I forget me" says how I feel too, even though sometimes to forget myself in love is hard. Especially when "greed is the unravelling" of love and "undones all the joy that can be". I wonder how hard is to want little and be happy with what one already has and thus be free. Instead we end up hurting one another more and more and then "we both get so blue".

This also ties up with another Eagles song, "You think you will find happiness beyond that green hill, but you never will. So learn to be still".

But for now even though the last 2 weeks have been extremely painful, it was as if it took so long for the debris of the submarine blasted under the sea to surface, I take hope, put on my rose glasses, watch the sun falling across my desk and the pile of papers I have to finish reading by tonight and breathe the falling foliage scented air knowing that as in Bob Dylan's song, "it's not dark yet, but it's getting there" is the metaphor for this life I have been given to live.

I also bought 4 books on Amazon yesterday night and I plan to take a Poetics class next semester. Yeah!

Yes check out Joni's Blue!!

I sit beneath the maple trees, whose leaves color the rain and fall with infinite slowness. Meanwhile memories are bursting open like jars of fragnant pickles.

First:

there I was and next to me there she was. Which She? Who was this? And where was I? Which song played on the radio? It must have been a radio hit, a popular love song, "I will love you, truely madly deelpy", that almost believes it's own prosaic verses. As much as I almost wanted to believe that moment would last forever when I was almost in love with love as I was with that temporal beloved.

Second:

there I was sitting under a tree. Which tree? What tree? Whose tree? Was it the tree of knowing that lies beyond all this unknowing, Buddha's Bodhi tree? Or was it the tree from which Eve was plucking her apple? What poems did I recite? Was it Rilke's Autumn or Neruda's Ode to Wine as I ate that fruit. What fruit was that? An apple, a pear or that deep redness that she hid between her legs?

Third:

there I was leaning against the window watching water trickle down. What water? Was this the rain? Or simply deep grief? What did I say to myself? What did others say to me? And did it ever stop raining as I sat there, with my veins slashed, in my blood drenched shirt and feasted upon myself, pickled with memories of sitting, walking and kissing under trees.

I close the jars, get up and walk away. Leaves continue to fall in the rain, under the trees.