November 3, 2007

Head in the clouds

Disclaimer: This poem and the story to follow on this theme draws inspiration from the post on Nivethitha’s blog, Lost and Found and my recent journey through the clouds in an airplane. .

Sitting on an airplane,
Thousand feet above,
I look down on the squalor
Lying below me.
They call this a city,
They call this a life.
Houses shaped like matchboxes,
Ash, the color all around.

As I rise,
My head in to the clouds,
Bathed in ash, in white and grey,
I look out at a sight,
Shapeless shapes,
Peaceful,
Given form, given names
By me.

The blue above,
Pure,
Unencumbered,
No limits,
No scars,
No boundaries
Sense of relief,
Sense of life.

The ashen buildings I see,
The populated places I go to,
The varied people I meet,
All constrict,
All limit,
Boundaries they set
I am lost,
Lost am I.

The formless clouds,
The ashen sight,
The endless blue,
All free me,
In the boundless,
In the limitless,
I find myself, with my head,
In the limitless ashen blue.

~Aditya

4 comments:

Suchi said...

Freedom

In crowds
With people
In a racket

Freedom

Because of the crowd of thoughts
Because of the population of ideas
Because of the ceaseless voices

Head in the crowds
Head in the clouds
A head.

aditya said...

Is that not a paradox, is that not a stigma? In crowds, in chaos, we find order, in order, in structure, we find chaos?

Is it not a ideal, that people with a head need to make use of it? Is it not a wish that atleast there will be someone who can use it?

Unknown said...

I still remember the day when I brought you home by flight from chennai.You were hardly three and asked me seeing outside the flight where from so uch of cotton comes from. YOu identified the white clouds as bales of cotton. It took a while for me explain the process of cloud forming and how they turn white. It was an effort wothwhile and I am happy you write poems on the same clouds now. God beless you my child.

Suchi said...

Is that not a paradox, is that not a stigma? In crowds, in chaos, we find order, in order, in structure, we find chaos?

Stranger still; in crowds, in chaos, there is order in the mind, things get settled. And from the order arises the answer, which is usually another question, which implies more chaos, and more order from chaos. What is the end of all the order, what is the meaning of all the chaos? Complicating things too much? Maybe!

Is it not a ideal, that people with a head need to make use of it? Is it not a wish that atleast there will be someone who can use it?

The head, is theirs, to use or to not to.

And I remember a caution against unfounded expectations recorded somewhere in this blog!