by Ajmer Rode
Father meditated with feet
in a pan of warm water
before sleep every evening
He never expected my mother
who brought him the water
to kneel.
Rather than wash in hurry
he wanted his feet left alone
let the dust particles loosen
as he quietly thanked
his feet and a supreme being
he vaguely believed in
Dislodging particles
spawned sensations
he could experience no other way
Not even from the touch
of Mother’s caring hands
Slowly his feet calmed
forgetting the bare-soled work
in the rugged fields
where I sometimes
joined him to help end the day
Meditation must start
in the head said Hegel
Head is where the mind is
and mind is where
impure spirit waits healing.
Father had never heard of Hegel
and his dialectics
striving toward spiritual perfection
Nor of guru Patanjali
who said
your body is your mind
stretched into bone and flesh.
It matters little
where you start the meditation
Father simply dipped his feet
in warm water
every evening.

A few random poems:
- Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux
- This Aloneness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Winter039s Fall
- House Of Silence by Philip Levine
- Владимир Набоков – Верба
- When ‘Omer Smote ‘Is Bloomin’ Lyre by Rudyard Kipling
- Федор Сологуб – Выйди в поле полночное
- Aspirations by SAAJIDA GORA
- The Call Of The Far — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Нарядно выстлав дол, взбегая на холмы
- Conversation with Comrade Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Николай Заболоцкий – Счастливый день
- Consolation by William Butler Yeats
- Олег Григорьев – Зашли мы к Сизову с приятелем
- Entranced by Satish Verma
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Владимир Вишневский – В Мисхоре
- Владимир Вишневский – Тем, что в женщине разбудишь
- Владимир Вишневский – Стада уж боле не пасутся мирно
- Владимир Вишневский – Пассажирский поезд
- Владимир Вишневский – Она идёт – как Восток алеет
- Владимир Вишневский – Незаконная гордость
- Владимир Вишневский – Нервическая песнь
- Владимир Вишневский – На исходе двадцатого века
- Владимир Вишневский – Мой брат на много лет вперёд
- Владимир Вишневский – Кто-то тянется к водному поло
- Владимир Вишневский – Как некстати или срыв спецоперации
- Владимир Вишневский – Из дневника читателя
- Владимир Вишневский – Долго же мы друг друга откладывали
- Владимир Вишневский – Что хочешь ты – желанье изъяви
- Владимир Степанов – Зима
- Владимир Степанов – Жучка и тучка
- Владимир Степанов – Юрий Гагарин
- Владимир Степанов – Ёжик и дождик
- Владимир Степанов – Яхта (Буква Я)
- Владимир Степанов – Хрюшка
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works