When the claps subside
And the the chatter dies
When the heads retreat
And the lights recede

You pine for a companion
And find none but your voice
Exhausted, a lifelong minion
It refuses to serve your device

The fading memory might
Rescue you off your plight
With the unfulfilled wishes
In a bouquet of your misses

With nothing more left
for the bones to gain
They still yearn for
A last dance in the rain

Run away to whichever cliff
No one misses this train
Not a question it is of if
It’s only a matter of when

How many shards
Is it going to take for you
To know they are more frail
than the disappearing dew?

Each of what you believe
About the world to be true
Is another unshattered myth
You are waiting to rue

Qualia is the felt, subjective texture of experience. Here, it is the felt certainty of belief before it’s tested by the gravels of time.

Sweep the anger under the carpet
Drive the pain away in the attic
Lock the shame in the closet
Abandon the fear at the fence
Bury the guilt in the garden
Hide the care in the basement
Hang a smile when it’s all done
But know what shall then befall
You can’t numb them just some
Without numbing them all.

Notes:

The opening verse of Masnavi, Rumi’s greatest work, is one of the most translated lines in poetry.

Beshno in ney chon shekaayat mikonad Az jodaayiha hekaayat mikonad
“Listen to this reed, how it tells a tale of separations, how it speaks of longing.”

The reed, a simple end-blown flute made from hollow river cane, was once rooted. Part of a living reed bed, connected to soil and water. That cut is what makes music possible but the reed never forgets the cutting.

The hollow inside it, which produces the sound, is the wound of separation. Without the hollow, there is no music. Without the cut, there is no longing. Without the longing, there is no song.

Inspired by that, a poem on what we do instead

If not for the same
Crossroads had life fed
Or the joys and the scars
That those choices led

What kind of a person
Then had you been
If not for the same
Trails you had seen

Had it been a different hill
Or yet another longing
What would have you
Found in your being

“There are no mistakes”
The universe commands
There is a reason
Where every drop lands
Waste time forcing choices
Or peek inside with a pause
Hidden behind all voices
Can you spot their cause?

When you hiked not to get to the top
But to discover how the trail bends
Ever wrote down a thought without
Knowing how it all ends.

When your biases came pounding
You bent for only a few
Ever changed your mind about
Something important to you.

When you moved across oceans
To mend a broken heart
Embraced your guilt and forgave
Your younger self’s part.

When in spite of a heart full of rage,
You unclenched that fist a little,
You changed the shape of your universe,
You made it a bit less brittle.