First Flight 

The plane races along the runway

like a blue-eyed stag bounding step by step,

its beak raised, wings unfurled,

rising straight into the sky.

Through the window—

high-rises, trees, roads,

shrinking into toy-like shapes,

fields spreading like flat plates,

ponds boxed into tiny squares,

sheep and goats no bigger than ants.

The earth recedes behind

as the aircraft tilts its wings

to take a sudden turn—

just as we stray off a path

onto some slanting trail,

towards Fork, towards trail.

At thirty-three thousand feet

I peer downward into the haze:

black mist hides winding threads,

surely they are rivers,

holding in their flow

the innocence of our hearts.

Clouds appear—

flower-clusters, white, azure,

soft as carded cotton;

hills draped in blue veils of mist,

summits locked in embrace with drifting vapors,

and far beyond—

snow-mountains, ascetic, still,

their serenity like sages in meditation.

Overhead stretch white canopies of cloud,

and when the plane strikes them

its wings glisten, damp,

as if even the passengers’ souls

had been washed in a secret rain.

Then—enter the air hostesses,

voices honeyed,

words spilling with laughter—

smiling lips, eyes alive,

whispering through the hush of turbines,

fragrant as fresh jasmine.

At night, midair,

I glance below—

scattered glimmers blink back,

like stars shining

from the depths of earth itself.

Descending into darkness,

the city spreads in long-shot frames:

a dazzle of lights,

shimmering, blinding,

pulling you into wonder,

but also planting

an unfamiliar dread,

like a lone wayfarer on a highway

who, hearing a vehicle thunder close behind,

instinctively edges

toward the safety of the curb.

Lakshmi Kant Mukul is an Indian writer, poet, critic, rural historian and serious scholar of folk culture, born on 08 January 1973 in a rural family in Maira village, District Rohtas, Bihar province, India. His literary journey began in 1993 as a Hindi poet and since then, he has published three books in Hindi and has been published in more than two dozen anthologies and hundreds of journals. Apart from Hindi, he also writes extensively in Urdu and Bhojpuri and also translates them into English himself. His two published poetry collections are- “Lal Chonch Wale Panchhi” and “Ghis Raha Hai Dhan Ka Katora”. His published book on rural and local history is- “Yatrion Ke Najriye Mein Shahabad”.

He has received many awards for his work, including Aarambh Samman for his poetry writing in Hindi language, the prestigious Hindi Sevi Samman of Bihar Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. His English poetry has been published in many international anthologies and translated into many languages. The notable achievements of his literary career are – recognition as a farmer poet and expertise on the changes taking place in the rural environment in the global era. Having studied law, he has adopted the modern style of farming.

Postal address -LAKSHMI KANT MUKUL Village _ Maira, PO _ Saisar, SO _ Dhansoi, Buxar, Bihar [ INDIA] Mob.no._6202077236 Postcode – 802117 Email – kvimukul12111@gmail.com mob.no

Kattakurgan State Pedagogical Institute Primary Education Department Group 25 04

To my Dad

The mountain you lean on is my loving garden

Advice, your words are a necklace in my mouth

We are not always together my love

I love you, Dad

You are a family man and a true professional

Motherland and parents are dear to us

Shabbona misses your daughter every moment

Stay healthy, dear Dad   

2 poems (***)

***

Dead as a broken moon

Sober as a leaf of a proud tree

Flimsy like pearls of dew in the wind

Tired like evaporated moisture

Free as the yolk in a broken egg

Quiet as a dead man in an evening cemetery

I drink the silence of calm before the execution

***

V. Burich

Wanting love is like lying on the tram tracks

Water is jealous of the density of air in a smoky apartment

You smoke a lot and you’re addicted

I’m addicted to you and your night breath

I’m addicted to your airy body

You’re bending over with a roll-your-own cigarette in your mouth like a sexy snake

Let’s go drink the air of a park frozen in winter time

You won’t come and will continue to smoke alone

I’m also lonely but I don’t smoke

You will die of lung cancer, but I have already died of love for you

We say goodbye lying on two parallel tram tracks

We don’t even say goodbye we just resign ourselves to sleep

GO HOME!

     “GO HOME!”  I heard shouted by a biker as he sped past.  I was bewildered.  I was north of Chicago, visiting the continental Bahá’í House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois. Located on a ridge of land beside Lake Michigan, it can be seen from some distance. With its ribbed dome rising over the tree tops, it is a distinctive feature of the North Shore. It is a unique structure which attracts visitors from all over the world. All are welcome.

     It is my spiritual home and has been for over half a century. I was not raised Bahá’í, no one is automatically Bahá’í.  That is a choice each person must make for themselves.  It was my choice as a young man out of high school on my own. I had been raised in a conventional Christian church in an unconventional family. My father’s mother was devout, so much so that, living on the farm next to ours, she began to come to our place every Sunday morning as soon as I was old enough to go, and would take me to Sunday School, then the church service afterwards. I was too young to put on my own pants, Dad had to hold them for me to step into, so I may have been just two or three. The sermons were long and boring, so Granma entertained me with quiet games. I eventually learned to sit still. As more children came into the family, they were added in the car too. Sunday mornings were the only times our parents had alone.

     Granma taught Sunday School while we attended our classes. She had been a founding member of the church. Actually, I should say, her husband, son and brothers had been founding members, women were not allowed to vote or serve on the church board. Granma was one of the most active members of that church, yet she regretted that never once in her ninety-seven years of life had she been elected to head any of the many organizations or committees she belonged to there.  She belonged to lots of community neighborhood organizations and had been elected president of them all at one time or another, more often than once, but not at her church.

     Even though I was recruited for the ministry, I had my own reasons for finding another spiritual home. I never accepted the idea that everyone other than members of that church were going to Hell. I always thought God was bigger than that. Bahá’í scriptures teach that the Creator of the Universe (God) has provided Messengers/Saviors to all peoples, so none is left out.  No one is condemned due to geography or time of birth.  When I found the  Bahá’í Faith, I embraced it immediately.

     The  Bahá’í Faith is as different from the belief system of that church, as the church building is from a  Bahá’í House of Worship. For one thing, in a  Bahá’í House of Worship, no preaching or weddings or funerals are undertaken. There is nothing in the edifice to separate people: no images, items or symbols – there are none at all. In this one, but not all, there are some brief quotations from Bahá’í scriptures around the top of the walls, in English because that is the dominant language in North America. No rituals or ceremonies are performed in this house of worship, because Bahá’ís have none to perform. With none of that, there is no altar to perform in front of. Likewise, there is no pulpit for preaching, because preaching is forbidden, as is collection of money. With no rituals, ceremonies or preaching, there is no clergy, no priest to perform these actions. There are brief worship services consisting of readings from the world’s religious scriptures, not just Bahá’í. There is no commentary on the scripture. The purpose of the building is for meditation and prayer. Though it is five hundred miles from my home, I try to go once a year just to keep in touch. There are few of them around the world because more effort, and money, has gone into providing schools in places where governments can’t. There are close to a thousand of them.

     Not only is the building open to the public, but Bahá’ís consider each House of Worship they build as a gift to mankind. These structures are places where people can take a break from the world around them and pray and meditate. Anyone may enter as long as they are quietly respectful of others. It is a peaceful, quiet place for meditation and prayer for each soul.       

Bahá’ís have erected Houses of Worship on each continent and more are being built. All are similar with no distractions for the worshiper, yet each is very different regarding the style of its construction. Some, in tropical climates, are open to the air. All reflect in some way the culture in which they are built. The one in New Delhi, India is in the form of a lotus blossom, often referred to as the Lotus Temple, and has been used by others to represent the entire country.

     Gardens surround the nine-sided buildings (they all have nine sides, in a circular shape, that is the major architectural requirement). The gardens serve as a transition space before entering for worship. In Wilmette, a circling bench is a feature of each of the nine gardens. One does not have to go inside to pray. Each garden has a fountain in a pool to help mask surrounding noises, but they cannot obscure them all. Some of these gardens are next to a major street that nearly encircles the structure. I was in one of those gardens when a motorcycle passed by and words were shouted into the air.

     “BAHÁ’ÍS GO HOME!”

     The biker had rapidly passed before I could process the words. They were not words I had expected to hear. I had actually never heard them before in my presence. Then I reflected.

     ‘Yes, in a few days I’ll be going home, back to Kansas, but I’m sure that’s not what he meant.  I could conceivably ‘go home’ to the home of my ancestors. Several came from Germany, some came from Ireland, but one of those was really Scottish, yet there are others. But part of me IS home! My Native American ancestry IS home!’

     That led to a new train of thought.

     ‘You sir, are more likely the invader. My Native people have been here since some last ice age.  Your people may well have come since then; why don’t YOU go ‘home?’

     Of course, I couldn’t say any of it, and what would have been the point if I had?

     Is this a slight bit of the rejection my German ancestors felt when they settled in the part of Kansas where I grew up and now live, when they tried to build a new life here in the 1860s? They were resented because they tried to make a living by the way they knew from home – making apple cider. They made two kinds: hard and soft. It was the hard cider that was objectionable, associated with drunkeness and unseemly behavior. I don’t know what all else.

     After a century here, my family is well respected here (someone must have liked the cider), so this rejection was a bit startling and slightly amusing. He drove on past with no more than venting whatever he needed to express.

     I thought what an impossibility it is to send people “home” when our only true “home” is planet Earth – and we are ALL home, wherever on Earth we happen to live. And, some people have little choice where that may be.

     The shouter undoubtedly assumed that members of the Bahá’í Faith had come to this country from somewhere else, when that’s only partially true. The first Bahá’ís in America were born here before they knew of the religion. In fact, most Bahá’ís at this time in every country are people who were born there and learned about the religion, then adopted it as adults. The shouter was unaware that one is not born a Bahá’í. A person can be born into a Bahá’í family, with Bahá’í parents, but to be a member of the Bahá’í community must be a conscious choice sometime later in life, usually after age fifteen. One can’t make that decision for anyone else. Parents can’t make that decision for their children.

     The Bahá’í Faith is based on the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, a member of nineteenth century Persian aristocracy who spent the last forty years of His life as an exile and prisoner due to His teaching such things as there being a Messenger of God after Muhammad, the equality of women and men, and that the human race is one race. He gained nothing for His efforts. He lost all of his possessions and all worldly status. His entire family were prisoners and two sons died under those conditions. He gained nothing and lost everything, but He did not give up.  

     Today, millions of people around the planet read and study His words and use them to improve their lives, their families and their communities. They are demonstrating His teachings that: “The earth is one country, and mankind its citizens.”  The human race is at “home” on planet Earth. We are ALL home; we ALL belong HERE, on Earth!

#  #

NO WAR

Another day cries out its terror,

the earth is red under the rubble.

The silence

of those who do not want to hear

falls upon the earth.

Indifference is gunpowder.

Elisabetta Bonaparte is an Italian poet, writer, lawyer and teacher. Her passion for poetry has materialized in a significant literary production, characterized by a profound sensitivity to existential and natural themes and by a refined, intimate and meditative language, rich in symbolism and metaphors. Elisabetta Bonaparte has participated in national and international literary competitions, obtaining First Prizes, Medals, Plaques, Special Prizes, as well as numerous other literary awards. Her compositions, translated into several languages have been selected and included in literary anthologies and published in national and international specialized journals, both in print and online, in many countries.

Developments

There used to be animals, the latest litter

of kittens being fed on the street by strangers,

or racoons rolling across the uncultivated grounds

along the railroad tracks,

and birds, countless birds, stretched across the sky

perched on high voltage wires, starlings

mostly, but also crows and occasionally

a falcon would show from God knows where.

Now, they are gone. Construction is

mostly responsible. But there was more to it:

ill-informed young men had heard racoons

were always rabid and would attack them,

so, they poisoned them. And they poisoned

the cats, too, because they reproduced;

no one had thought to fix them and that that

would do. And the tall buildings placed where

before there were giant black trees made

the place incommodious to the birds

who used to range their rainbows in the spring.

Oh, how I miss them. Miss them all badly.

How gladly would I replace the people

for their preening and unconsidered living.

How much more than a motel

was the murmuration of those birds.

Listening To The Voice of Virginia Woolf

It was always

reaching a crescendo

then descending

like a shirt ironed

with a hiss from the steam

released like the tide

the rattle of pebbles-

I saw it with my eyes.

It returned always

the way words do

that fill a line

and make it stable-

earth shoveled into

a garden and into

a burial plot, too.

Petals open

our own tiny sun.

Shaking out the sea

it sparkles and bears

witness to the bodily

shape of memories. To some

it is ironclad law that is all

and holds within it

such dread as to not

be considered at all.

Who but a poet would associate

incarnadine with multitudinous

seas? Ah, words went

breathing and traveling

from street to street

picking up habits

remembered for centuries

becoming lips and speech.

The Examination

The doctor’s nurse will lay you down

on crumpling paper on a metal table

and place electrodes on your chest and arms.

She will record your heart rhythms

and be satisfied with the results

if they are regular and recur.

The test has its limits: it tells the heart’s

electrical currents. It does not know

the many hurts it suffered, or when it started

fighting back with all its umbrage.  

I am surprised that they separate the heart

from the rest of the life, as if we did not belong

to an interrelated organism.

Afterwards, she will escort you to a waiting room,

where everyone sits alone and no one

talks or looks around. She will leave you there

where everyone wants to hear

their name called out and their hearts unstimulated

go on beating alone.

Loneliness When It Rains

The sky weeps tears of mercury,

each drop a dense, cold thought.

My soul, a ship adrift on a sea of ​​lead,

without a compass, without a port,

only the gray horizon.

The umbrella, a cage of broken ribs,

half-protecting me from the inner storm.

The streets, empty veins of a sleeping city,

where ghosts dance to the wind’s rhythm.

The silence, a rough cotton in my throat,

choking the words I never spoke.

I am a leafless tree in the eternal winter,

waiting for a spring that never comes.

The asphalt, an obsidian mirror,

reflecting my blurred face.

Each puddle, a blind eye watching me,

reminding me that I am alone in this labyrinth.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.