In motion
I am still
In stillness
I am empty
In emptiness
I find no peace
Hollow
Haunted
Vacant
Amidst this familiar pandemonium
I alone am solid
Yet invisible
Carrying as passenger
A pain which pays no fare
Answers no questions
Offers no solutions
The me of this moment
None will remember
Not even I
But here
The pain shuffles off
Into the crowd
And I will not remember it either
I marvel
For a moment
At the saris
Hanging in the shops
A spectacle of
Colour
Texture
Pattern
Each sari unique
Tightly packed
In the confines
Of tiny shops
Not at all unlike
The thrumming humanity
In the narrow streets
Of Chandni Chowk
It was the last full day in India. The smoke had been chokingly thick for the entire month I’d spent in the north, and Delhi hadn’t even been the worst of it. Still, I’d found a decent rate at a decent hotel (some small comfort in exchange for the respiratory distress) on the edge of Old Delhi’s fantastical Chandni Chowk markets for the final days before my flight home.
Would you return my
Gaze were it not for the lens
Friends for an instant
An ornate lamp hangs
In a gentle place
There to illuminate
When darkness falls
A beautiful ornament
In the clear light of day
Would create a spectacle
In the dim hues of night
And now I wish
I had seen this room
Bathed in the prismatic glow
Which gives shape to the dark
Every culture
Every person
Knows beauty
In their own way
I remind myself
Try to find
Beauty’s heart
In every way
That is the place
Where we are all one
That is the place
From which flows love
The thing about travel is
Something so everyday
As a group of friends
Hanging out on a street corner
Seems extraordinary…
…even beautiful
The thing about extended travel is
Once familiarity renders
The extraordinary as everyday
The sense of beauty in the mundane
Remains…
…and travels home with me
You with the sad eyes
Who found the glass
In this swarm of activity
And I released the shutter
Capturing your moment
Of I know not what
Tired?
Beaten down?
Or just weary
Of yet another tourist
Stealing a moment of your life
For a purpose you’ll never know
One small moment of
Solitude in the chaos
Unladen Burdens
Faces and life stories
Pedaled by
Captured in moments
Of pixels
Then a camera
Pointed back at me
Capturing a moment
Of a moment being captured
Our cameras lowered
A smile, a laugh, and a wave
We four strangers
In a moment of intimacy shared
Pix to Words 