Reflections: Notes on Soliloquy - II

On Life and Balance:

When my peers pause, and to me, question pose –

‘Friend, why seek you to dabble in all trades? Doing this and that, being here and there?

Is it not true – what the elders say-

That he that yearns all, yields none? He that grasps all, loses all?’

I too pause – and to them rejoin;

‘Fellows – in this life, a man must live fully, if he must live at all!

For nothing satisfies in its singularity –

To derive deepest meaning from life, seek we must, to undertake tasks as many as opportunity presents;

We must swim with the fishes; we must fly with the falcons;

We must love with the lovers; and fight with the warriors;

Our days must be perpetually suspended;

In the equipoise of doing so much, for so many people, in so many ways-

This is the balanced life!’

                  Surumani Manzi,

                       15^th June, 2011

Of Family and Love thereof:

‘‘A man’s family must be his life-

It must be central to his thoughts, his talk, his tasks;

It is family that –

Through a mother’s womb – conceives us,

Through her nipple – feeds us,

Through a father’s sweat – fends for, shelters us;

Through a brother’s care – grows us …

In voice singular, they breathe life into our empty shell;

Fill our heart with gladness and above all;

Lend us identity – in name and norm!

In the ashes of our life’s odysseys;

Their smoldering embers must be kept alive …

From them we proceed; young, glad and gay –

Into the world’s whirlwind –

Clawing and gnawing,

At the nuggets inside …

To them we return; used and bruised-

Sick, sad, and bad;

They embraces us – openly, plainly;

Near them,

We are close to god …’’

                                                         Surumani Manzi,

                                              12:01am - 30^th June, 2011

‘‘The hand is an instrument of investment, if it may be tuned to discipline …

‘‘The eye, trained upon engravings of hands ancient,

 May gaze upon wisdoms old –

‘‘I feel alive today,

Alive to heaven’s touch,

To the sounds of that angelic choir,

Gabriel in his flowing robes,

Blinding white in their glare,

Beckons me to stare …

'Oh, the soul singeth a forlorn song -'

‘‘The musical notes of nature,

Pullulating with a newness,

Pulsate upon my nerves,

Tickle my heart into an excited beat,

Delicate – and delightful,

Fine, yet fearful …

‘‘Mind aloft clouds of awe,

I in wake, wonder –

While wisdom not my stake,

Are the stars persons – alive?

Glowing, musing - loving?

‘‘Thought I had me a reason,

Ear full of grain,

Field ripe in season,

Till I sensed but my folly,

Much silly, and quite a bully -

It eggs my fire to spark,

I am ash in kind,

Cinders chaffed and dead –

Black coals with no heads …’’

                                   Surumani Manzi,

                           2:00am – 2^nd July, 2011

On Trust and Love:

‘‘No greater band of human emotion bonds souls stronger than trust, than faith;

A man will always feel tenderly and act loyally toward the fellow whose trust he has won.

Corollary, no greater despair can be wrought upon a man than that which accrues from the betrayal of trust;

If a man trusts you, he will have declared his love –

To betray such a one’s affection, is to condemn them to a fate worse than death, more painful than purgatorial pangs –’’

      Surumani Manzi,

      11:43pm – 30th June, 2011