Saturday, December 06, 2008

Resurgence


This was meant to be prose and part of another blog post.
But as I completed the really long sentence, I saw that it deserved to be a poem :-) An instance of serendipity!

Believe not that wounds heal
Merely covered are they
By layers of time inexorable
Until they settle to the dark bottom
Of a bygone past
And the tears have dried.

Forget not the smouldering lava
Beneath the deceptive calm
Of a snow covered volcano

Every fresh wound inflicted,
No matter how slight,
Descends upon a vulnerable heart
Like a sword or a bludgeon
Wielded with all might
It becomes the last straw
That assumes a stone’s weight
And falls upon the tranquil surface
Of a tormented soul
Creating not mere ripples
But waves of an unfailing memory
That carries glimpses
Of that trauma of adolescence
On to the shores of the happy present


7 comments:

Nitish Ratnam said...

Good one Sowmya! Very true! Actually most of the strong thoughts and memories are recorded and stored in the sub-conscious mind. Every once in a while they surface and make contact with the conscious mind which in turn brings about certain chemical changes in the body (this is also known as the mind matter phenomenon). Now, if the memories are happy the chemicals bring about a pleasant sensation on the human body which makes the mind to crave for some more of these sensations. On the other hand if the memories are not so good, they bring about unpleasant sensations and the mind reacts aversely to these sensations. An average human being might not even know that there is a physical sensation being experienced in the body and they unconsciously react to these sensations rather than the memories/thoughts themselves. In other words the thoughts/memories are themselves not bad, it's the way the mind reacts to the physical sensations arising out of these thoughts that makes them seem bad. There are techniques like meditation which when applied helps the mind to stop reacting to these sensations and make it see things the 'way they are' and not 'as what they seem to be'.

(Note : Some newly formed religions like Scientology believes that not all bad memories are from our own personal experience but they were planted into the minds/souls of our ancestors by an evil alien race. The alien race released the souls onto earth by using thousands of hydrogen bombs. I’m not sure about the details of how they believe this was done. So these bad memories in our subconscious minds are preventing human beings from realizing their full potential and see things the way they really are. This also conforms to the old Hindu belief that everything around is ‘maya’ (illusion). By the way Tom Cruise is the most famous Scientologist! )

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

Hey Nitish,

Thank you for the detailed account of the subject.

Call up!

So you have a blog now! Good... start writing soon... I can assure you that I will be a dedicated reader :-)

Anupama said...

You have been tagged :)

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

Welcome back Anu :-)

What exactly does that mean???

Satish said...

This reminds me of an Old Arabic Saying " A needle that pierces also carries a thread that binds"

Each incident teaches a valuable lesson in life, we learn and get on with life :)

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

Wow! That was a nice quote, and an old thought put in a nice way...

welcome back.. :)

Ketan said...

Nice! The way you connected straw to a stone, and stone to ripples.

Okay, now am feeling a bit reassured that maybe, you and I don't blog of diametrically opposite topics. A story--'Residua' (click) and a poem--'Duel' (click) deal with exactly the same issue. :) However, the story is longish and takes around 90 min to read, so if you do decide to take it up one of these days, just keep that in mind.

TC.