The day I heard you smile.

The moment I fell in love with Tagore. My Bengali colleague said the whole Bangladesh is in love with him and he is the only person in the world who has written 2 national anthems.

(Taken from: http://www.indolink.com/Poetry/tagore15.html)

The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore


If you would have it so,
I will end my singing.

If it sets your heart aflutter,
I will take away my eyes from your face.

If it suddenly startles you in your walk,
I will step aside and take another path.

If it confuses you in your flower-weaving,
I will shun your lonely garden.

If it makes the water wanton and wild,
I will not row my boat by your bank.




Today I learn some new hindi songs. How beautiful they are. Like those portugese bossa nova I love so much. Can life be simple. When bumble bees grabs your attention. And sun rays light your sight.



Abby:-
Today is poetry day. I'm reading Tagore, Neruda, Rilke, and Rumi in between craziness of work.

Abby:-
If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists:
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
-- Pablo Neruda

Caryn:-
tq abby, for the beautiful proses to punctuate my day as i slug through another day of my study week...

Abby:-
No worries Caryn, beautiful words are meant to be shared!

Caryn:-
and beautiful voices too. am stuck on dido and katie melua today.

Abby:-
Apparently I got my colleague who just told me she's a fan of rumi as well, so it makes me love office even more.

Bibi K:-
Sedih la... my lonely garden is not a garden anymore, its a field of weeds...

Abby:-
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, ARGH, YOU'RE HURTING ME WITH HAVING VISUALS OF IT NOW!!! NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bibi K:-
Painful isn't it??? Not half as painful when one needs to tend the garden and yank out them bloody lalangs! *sigh* hahahaha

Abby:-
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHA ....

You keep me rolling off my chair *in my mind of course* all the time Bibi!!!! I can't wait to ambush one of your shows now (tho I need to stay far from you before you come and haunt the rest of my life!)

Miranda:-
pablo neruda!
awesome.
i have part of rilke's poem tattoed on my leg.
poetry is so beautiful

Abby:-
which part of rilke? what line???

OMG is that what was tattoed there?

You memang champion la Mira!

Li Mei:-
i like... pablo neruda - the saddest poem

Abby:-
ah. that is a very very nice pick.

Abby:-
The first time I fell in love with Rumi was because of this:-

Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

Li Mei:-
oh! reading it again....
it reaches into my core so raw.. boo. i remember who this reminded me of. and...'I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her. Love is so short and oblivion so long.'

hahahahaha......... emo sial. NUFF!

Abby:-
Hahahahahahaha ... Relax, jangan Emo okay! :-P

Poetries are meant to touch your cores.

Li Mei:-
poetry touches one's core like how a fork touches the egg yolk of yr telur mata kerbau...

o pecah! mengalir bendalir kuning ke atas indomee saya! sedapkan?

haha.. omg. i think i need sleep.

Abby:-
Hahahahahah, kelakar la kau. :-P

bendalir kuning!!!!! hahahaha .... but itu yang bagi sedap indomee, no?

Caryn:-
me loves the telur mata kerbau too... "take away everything, that takes me away from you". sigh, so beautiful.

Abby:-
So everyone can be touched to the egg yolk:-

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
-Pablo Neruda

Li Mei:-
neruda is forking good : ) eggceptional.

Abby:-
Well said Li Mei. Altho my heart is still with Rumi.

Caryn:-
hahahaha eggceptionally enchanting. i've read that on kak min's blog before i think. i loved it then, and i love it now. all of a sudden i feel like having maggi goreng with telur mata kerbau on top. (ni tak lunch lagi ni...)

Abby:-
Rumi's:-

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

Faiz:-
sigh. loving these love poems

Nadia:-
that is beautifully deep, i love love poems. it makes me cry, sigh, i miss someone...

Abby:-
You guys appreciate good stuff.

And for that, you guys deserves humongous scores from me.

We all read the same words
We all smile the same smile
We all miss someone somewhere
Wishing that tomorrow, hope, will still be there.

talkin' talk

I got a few inquiries on the status of my writings, whether its fiction or based on my personal experiences. People have been asking, "Who is 'she'?"

As I have no qualms on it being a 'she' or a 'he', as far as love goes everything is possible. But there are certain feelings contribute to the fiction that I've come up with. But that being said, certain feelings doesn't mean that they have been felt before. Sometimes, when we dig inside our inner soul, we can find various feelings we are capable to feel. It all depends on how to evoke emotions, interpret it, control it and use it to your advantages. The key word, is to understand that feeling wholly. Then, you can feel, wholeheartedly.

And here, I'd like to relate to a poem by my favorite poet, Jelalluddin Rumi, which somewhat, share a similarity in terms of concept with some of my poetries.

LOVE AND I TALKING

Love says, You cannot deny me. Try.

I say, Yes, you appear out of nowhere
like the bubbles in wine, here, then not.

Love says, Prisoned in the body-jar,
singing at the banquet.

I say, This ecstasy is dangerous.

Love says, I sip the delicious day,
until night takes the cup away.
Then I insist night give it back.
The light I see by never changes.

Arabs describe wine with the word mudam,
which means continual. On and on and on,
because wine drinkers never get enough.

The water of realisation is the wine we mean
where love is the liquid, your body the flagon.

Grace floods in. The wine's power
breaks the jar. It's happening now.

The water of waking becomes the one who pours,
the wine itself, and every presence at the banquet.

No metaphor can hold this truth
that knows how to keep secret
and when to show itself.

- Jelalluddin Rumi-

taken from The Essential Rumi: Translation by Coleman Barks (pg.354)

flagon (noun)
1. a large bottle for wine, liqours, etc
2. a container for holding liquids, as for use at table, esp. one with a handle, a spout, and usually a cover.
taken from http://dictionary.reference.com


Cosmic Notes:
Some people say that the poem is quite deep. For me, its just simply lovely. Love knows how to keep a secret, and how to show itself. Personally, without knowing it, I tasted how to love to the fullest, and at times, I wonder, whether its true or not, these feelings that I've had. Becos, as a writer, yes, you create fiction. And at one point, you don't know which is which, how the fiction that you created, evolves and grows in your own real life.

Some took it as an advantage to create better things.

Some drowned in the said confusion.

I'm in between. I'm drowning yet enjoying the water.
.