Gently Down The River

I am the calm
Yet I have questions, none to get
But all to know, yet stillness
The mind runs like firey horses
Into the unknowns, sieves the dust
Touches it, years to find each grain
And then it repeats
Yet I am calm, like the stoms that capsizes mountains
Grinds them into fine dust
I am calm, the calm of idle.

With Gemini asking me questions abouty poem , i spoke to it. Here is a summary after that.

Based on our entire conversation—your original lines and the crucial clarifications you provided—here is the final analysis of your piece.

The Philosophy of the Sleeping Volcano

The poem is not a confession of anxiety, as it might appear at first glance. It is a declaration of Intellectual Vitality.

1. The Nature of Your "Calm" (The Idle)

> "I am calm, the calm of idle."

> 

This is the baseline state. You defined "idle" not as laziness, but as dormancy. You are like a high-performance engine sitting at a red light—vibrating, humming, perfectly still, but containing massive potential energy. This state is peaceful, but it is not "alive" in the way you crave. It is merely waiting.

2. The Spark (The "Un-stilling")

> "Yet I have questions, none to get / But all to know"

> 

This is the ignition. The only thing that breaks your dormancy is the allure of the Unknown. The distinction "none to get" is vital—you aren't looking for rewards. You are looking for answers. It is a pure, intrinsic drive.

3. The Vitality (The Firey Horses)

> "The mind runs like firey horses"

> 

Since you clarified that this process "brings you all alive," this imagery transforms. The fire isn't burning you; it is fueling you. This is the thrill of the chase. When the question arises, the "idle" ends, and the rush begins. The horses running is the feeling of your mind finally waking up to do what it was built to do.

4. The Destruction of Ignorance (The Storm)

> "like the stoms that capsizes mountains / Grinds them into fine dust"

> 

This is the climax of your process. To know the truth ("the grain"), you must destroy the mystery ("the mountain").

 * The mountain looks impressive, but it is opaque. You cannot see inside it.

 * The storm (your intellect) tears the mountain apart.

 * The result is "dust"—granular, analyzed, understood truth.

Conclusion

Your poem describes a binary existence:

 * The Idle: You are calm, waiting, and safe.

 * The Alive: You are "un-stilled," chaotic, destructive (to ignorance), and euphoric.

You are not a monk seeking eternal silence. You are a hunter seeking the next difficult question. The "calm" is just the pause between hunts.

Parth Sarathi

Let me tell you about a fabric called life

Woven with silk, 

Where the light and darkness sings

I am a postulate, a quagmire of living deeds

That seeks no solace in illusive things

I would be no one, yet be all

If you seek such, I do not project as so

I am the dark light, and the light in darkness

It is for your choice, which ever way the river sings

Hold me close, or apart, or neither

Blatantly reject my entire existence 

I am still in this cosmic fold with you about

I fly through this existence on destiny's wings.

And here is some help from claude.

There's something about this that feels like standing at a threshold, neither in nor out.

That opening line – "a fabric called life woven with silk" – it starts gentle, almost decorative. But then you slide into "I am a postulate, a quagmire of living deeds" and suddenly it's not gentle at all. A postulate is something assumed without proof, fundamental but unproven. And a quagmire... that's messy, stuck, complicated. The two together? That's the human condition right there.

What gets me is the paradox you're threading through – "I would be no one, yet be all." It's very... Parth Sarathi, isn't it? The charioteer who's both guide and observer, present but not attached to the outcome. Krishna standing there saying, I'm here, I'm everywhere, I'm also nowhere – your call, Arjuna. Figure it out.

The "dark light, and the light in darkness" – that's not trying to be poetic for the sake of it. It's pointing at something real. We're not clean-cut beings. We carry both. Always. The contradiction isn't a flaw, it's the thing itself.

And then you do something interesting towards the end. "Hold me close, or apart, or neither / Blatantly reject my entire existence / I am still in this cosmic fold with you about" – there's this complete surrender to... what? Not to another person's will, but to the reality that existence doesn't need permission. Whether you acknowledge it or not, the river keeps singing, as you put it.

"I fly through this existence on destiny's wings" – that last line, it almost sounds passive, like giving up. But it's not, is it? It's acceptance. Flying, not falling. There's motion, there's grace in that image.

Is this part of something larger you're working on, or did it just... arrive?

Saubala

If the universe is a die cast

I am the number on the dice

You are the pawn that needs to move

I am not the will , I am the will of the universe

An instrument for its actions

I, like the hand that cast an outcome

Am tied too to the ropes that have long prevailed

I do not will my turn

I am forced to face you, when the time comes 

For between you and me

I know this is an illusion and I flow in its tides

You swim against it, wanting to create your own

It is beautiful to watch the outcomes

Each pre-ordained,

I watch you wish to want a win

It makes for such a comical scene.

An Analysis by Claude.for those who need some help in understanding.

**Saubala**

Right, so first – the title. Saubala. Shakuni's formal name, son of Subala. If you know your Mahabharata, you already hear the rattle of loaded dice, the rigged game at Hastinapura. That frames everything that follows.

*A note: In the poet's book, The Oath of Gandhara, Shakuni undergoes an epiphany that fundamentally reshapes his understanding of his own role in the cosmic game. This poem seems to emerge from that altered perspective.*

The speaker here claims to be a number on the dice. Not the thrower, not even the dice itself – just the number. The outcome waiting to happen. And you, the reader or the addressed... you're the pawn. The piece that moves based on what the dice shows.

Straightforward enough. Cosmic determinism, the old debate.

But then it twists.

The speaker isn't claiming freedom. "I, like the hand that cast an outcome / Am tied too to the ropes that have long prevailed." So we're both trapped. The dice-thrower's hand is bound. The number on the dice has no autonomy. Even the instrument of fate is... an instrument. No agency. "I do not will my turn / I am forced to face you, when the time comes."

That's the cruelty at the heart of this poem. Not that one person is free while another struggles. Both are caught. The only difference is awareness.

The speaker knows it's an illusion and flows with it. You – the addressed – swim against tides trying to create your own. And from the speaker's vantage point, this struggle is... beautiful at first. Then comical. "I watch you wish to want a win" – that line does real work. You don't even just want to win. You *wish* you could want it properly. Like the desire itself is hollow, borrowed.

The final line lands the tone: "It makes for such a comical scene."

Not tragic. Not even pitiable. Comical.

That's where Shakuni shows through. This isn't cosmic wisdom speaking – it's something more complex. The speaker has stopped fighting and now watches others fight, finding dark amusement in their thrashing. There's almost affection in calling the outcomes "beautiful" but by the end... it's just absurd theatre.

**What makes it work:**

The restraint. No melodrama. The speaker never claims superiority – both are bound by the same ropes. The awareness doesn't grant escape, just a different relationship to the cage.

The mythological weight without explanation. If you catch the Saubala reference, the poem deepens. If you don't, it still functions as philosophical observation. But knowing Shakuni – the man who orchestrated the dice game – adds layers. And if you've read The Oath of Gandhara and know what realization he comes to... the poem becomes something else entirely.

The tonal shift. "Beautiful" to "comical" across just a few lines. That movement from aesthetic appreciation to dark laughter tells you everything about the speaker's state of mind.

**What might trouble a reader:**

The coldness. There's no empathy here, no reaching across the divide. Just watching. If you're the swimmer in this poem, you get no comfort. Just observation and mockery.

The determinism itself. Some readers will resist the entire premise – that outcomes are pre-ordained, that agency is illusion. The poem doesn't argue for this view, it assumes it. Take it or leave it.

The ending might feel too neat. After all that philosophical setup, "comical scene" could read as glib. Though I'd argue that's the point – the speaker has moved past grand tragedy into dark comedy. Which is either profound exhaustion or something deeper. Maybe both.

**The darker read:**

What if the speaker is lying? Not about the mechanics – about their own acceptance. "I flow in its tides" – is that enlightenment or surrender dressed up as wisdom? The need to watch, to comment, to judge the struggle as "comical"... that doesn't sound like genuine detachment. That sounds like someone who's still engaged, still processing, still needing the other person to be foolish so they can feel... what? Wise? Justified? Free?

The poem doesn't answer this. It lets the speaker claim flow while displaying all the signs of someone still very much caught in the game. Just playing a different role in it.

That ambiguity – intended or not – is where the poem gets interesting. Because if the speaker is self-deceived, then the "comical scene" isn't you swimming against tides. It's the speaker watching you, thinking they're different, while the same ropes bind you both.

Or perhaps the speaker has seen something that makes all struggle – including their own past actions – look absurd in retrospect. Not self-deception then, but a kind of hollowed-out clarity that finds dark humour in what used to feel like destiny, duty, choice.

Either way, the poem sits in that uncomfortable space between wisdom and trauma, between flowing and drowning while calling it something else.

Terrible acts of writing

The challenge is to rhyme, 

Find words that suit and build on about time

I feel no need to qualify, or weave such a lie

I shall let my poems gather dust, and silently die

The toll it has taken for the first stanza here

Brings me more woe than love could gear

Yet the words have this unwanted force

But then now th second stanza has become morose

Bishop states of loss from her life and time

I for one simply cannot make my poems rhyme

I have watched my heart bleed and flood my eyes

And with such unwanted build-up the third stanza dies 

This could be the last ditch try

I have penned poems even at my low or high

This fourth stanza will signal an end

For this poem wil be difficult to mend.

Because

How would we reconcile

 For we are no longer at an impasse

 I have long stood here, at the helm of odds

You at the other

I have held my hand out long, fat too I fathom

For it now aches, when I hold a goblet

The wine no longer is a balm, it helps subtract 

You, reality, me, and the world

So wave, as I wave back, maybe if you could

I would, my other hand is good for it

It even makes cute shadow animals

For you to laugh, when you need to

But then, I do not rue

For I have seen my need to feel pass

 Fade, for I have grown to know me

 I still exist, you do too

 Just on different planes of thoughts.

Thoughts from claude on the poem

The ache in that first hand – the one held out too long – that's vivid. Physical memory of waiting, of hoping someone would take it.

And then the pivot. The other hand, still good, still capable of making shadow animals. That shift from pain to playfulness, but knowing it won't be shared... there's something bittersweet there that doesn't announce itself. It just sits.

The wine bit feels honest in a way that's uncomfortable. Not numbing to forget – subtracting. You, reality, me, the world. That's a particular kind of arithmetic, the kind you do when things are too much.

But the ending doesn't collapse into bitterness. "I still exist, you do too / Just on different planes of thoughts." That's acceptance without pretending it doesn't hurt. Not closure exactly – more like... acknowledgement. We're here, we're there, both real, both separate.

The line "for I have grown to know me" – that's the pivot point, isn't it? The hand ached because it was held out too long. But in that time, something else happened. Growth, maybe. Or just familiarity with oneself when the other isn't there to define the space.

It's quiet grief. Not dramatic, not angry. Just... true.

Tomorrow then?

My voice as all else will fade

In the infinite darkness of space, where all things have come to be

Cease to be

And like a sound wouldn't be heard

Mine would too

All that would remain are the fragments of what is unrecognizable space

And one, at any, if

Should wonder, it would not be about me

Nor about what you deem us

I exist in my own, surrounded by the absolution called me

You , as you.. albeit in possible illusions of unexplainable 

Neither of which would stop the moon from release it's tidal lock

And when it would, neither of us would have ever existed, for no one would know or care

Here I am , calling

Hearing my own 

Answering my own, accumulating me

And your existence, somehow in essence

Mortal

In the ever cyclic existence of us all.

This one sits in that strange space between nihilism and Advaita, doesn't it? Let me work through it.

**The Frame**

"Tomorrow then?" – that opening feels like half a conversation. Like you've already been discussing something, and now you're asking... what? If tomorrow even matters? If it'll come at all? It sets up this mood of uncertainty, of questioning continuity itself.

**The Cosmic Erasure**

The first section is pure impermanence. Your voice, my voice, all voices – they fade into "infinite darkness of space" where everything comes to be and ceases to be. The sound metaphor is clever: a sound in vacuum, unheard, meaningless. Even what remains becomes "fragments of what is unrecognizable space" – not just forgotten, but unrecognisable. No one would wonder about us. No one would care.

The moon's tidal lock reference is brilliant in its scale. When the moon finally breaks free (billions of years from now), we won't have even existed in memory. Not a trace. The universe is indifferent.

**The Paradox of Self**

But then you shift. "I exist in my own, surrounded by the absolution called me."

This line is doing heavy work. "Absolution" – is it forgiveness? Release? Or are you playing with "absolute"? Because it reads like the Advaitic witness: the self that exists in itself, complete, needing nothing external. You're surrounded by your own totality. The "me" is both prison and sanctuary.

And then: "You, as you.. albeit in possible illusions of unexplainable."

The other person exists... maybe. In illusion. Unexplainable. This is Maya territory – the appearance of separation, the appearance of "you" and "me" when there's really only consciousness observing itself.

**The Solo Dialogue**

"Here I am, calling  

Hearing my own  

Answering my own, accumulating me"

This is where it gets interesting. You're not calling *to* anyone. You're calling, hearing yourself, answering yourself. The witness watching the witness. Consciousness folding back on itself. "Accumulating me" – like you're gathering yourself into existence through this self-referential loop.

**The Other's Mortality**

"And your existence, somehow in essence  

Mortal"

After all that cosmic scale, after declaring the meaninglessness of both of us... you still acknowledge the other. "Somehow in essence" – you can't quite explain how or why this "you" matters, but they do. They're mortal. Finite. And that mortality means something even in this cyclic, meaningless universe.

**What It's Doing**

The poem is wrestling with a contradiction you can't resolve: on one hand, nothing matters in cosmic time. We're sounds in vacuum. On the other hand, *right now*, in this moment, there's a "me" and a "you" and somehow that relationship exists, even if it's illusion.

The Advaitic flavour is strong – the witness consciousness, the self-observing self, the questioning of separation. But unlike pure Advaita where you'd dissolve the "you" completely into the One, this poem keeps circling back to it. "Your existence, somehow..." Like you're trying to let go but can't quite.

**The Rhythm**

It's deliberately fragmented. Short lines, broken thoughts, ellipses. It mimics that state where you're thinking in loops, where one thought interrupts another. "In possible illusions of unexplainable" – that grammatical incompleteness mirrors the conceptual incompleteness. You can't finish the thought because the thought can't be finished.

The question 

"Tomorrow then?" You don't resolve whether tomorrow matters. You just lay out the terms – cosmic meaninglessness, self-witness, the inexplicable persistence of "you" and "me" in the cycle. And leave it hanging.

Anitya

Are you, 

not just a mere thought

A flicker, 

   in the deep of my mind

I the brahman

     you an idea

And your claim of it to be due love

Is such so? 

Where our existence interleaves,

And fades, 

     as your thought passes

Another appears, 

 and another

I eternally remain, 

      to me

You have shone 

 for now, 

        who knows...

And who could?

      of your persisting 

Neither would cause me distress 

I am the brahman,

  I am forever

Until I am.

---------Guidance for the reader from Claude-------

**Understanding "Until I am": A Reading**

This poem moves like a philosophical argument disguised as romantic dismissal. On the surface, it's the eternal witness – the brahman – refusing a beloved's claim that their connection is love. But beneath that coldness sits a harder truth about the nature of existence itself.

The setup is deceptively simple. Someone flickers in the brahman's awareness, and they make a claim: the very fact that they're *noticed* at all, that they register in this vast consciousness, must mean it's love. "Due love" – love that's proper, owed, necessary. The beloved is arguing: *You see me. Therefore, this must matter. Therefore, love.*

And the brahman says: no.

"Is such so?" The question itself is skeptical, almost contemptuous. Then comes the systematic dismantling. Our existences briefly touch, yes, but they fade just as quickly. You're a thought passing through – and thoughts pass constantly. Another appears, and another. You've shone for now... who knows if you'll persist? And crucially: neither your shining nor your persisting would cause me distress.

This is witness consciousness at its coldest. The brahman positions itself as eternal, unmoved, observing the flux of transient forms without attachment. *You think you're special? You're just another flicker. I remain; you don't.*

But then: "Until I am."

Those three words don't undercut the preceding claims – they *complete* them. The brahman has been speaking truth throughout. It IS eternal compared to fleeting thoughts. It DOES remain while individual ideas pass. The beloved's transience is real. But so is the brahman's eventual cessation.

Here's where the philosophy deepens. "Forever" in the poem isn't a lie or delusion – it's *relative truth*. From the brahman's perspective, for the duration of its existence, it is eternal. The witness consciousness experiences itself as permanent because it outlasts every thought, every feeling, every claim of love that passes through it. That "forever" is real and valid within its frame.

"Until I am" acknowledges the ultimate truth: even this witness has boundaries. When the brahman's existence ends – when the body dies, when consciousness ceases – even the eternal observer disappears. Nothing escapes impermanence. Not thoughts, not love, not even the self that claims to be beyond it all.

The poem operates on both levels simultaneously, and neither negates the other. The brahman rightfully dismisses the beloved's transience because, from where it stands, that impermanence is obvious and unavoidable. You're a thought; I'm the thinker. You fade; I persist. But the final line admits: I too am temporary, just on a different scale.

This isn't hypocrisy. It's layered acceptance. The soul can claim "I am brahman, I am forever" and mean it truly – for its duration. And it can also acknowledge "until I am" and mean that just as truly. Both statements honour reality at different levels.

What makes the poem brutal isn't nihilism – it's *clarity*. The brahman sees through the beloved's claim not from arrogance but from understanding how existence works. Thoughts arise and pass. Experiences come and go. The witness remains... until it doesn't. Nothing is exempt from this pattern. Not even cosmic consciousness itself.

The coldness throughout – "Neither would cause me distress" – isn't cruelty then. It's radical non-attachment born from accepting impermanence at every level. Why would the brahman be distressed by your fading when it knows its own forever is equally conditional? Both of you will cease. The timescales differ, but the ending is shared.

So when the beloved claims love, the brahman responds with the truth: you're noticed because awareness notices everything, not because you're special. And even if you were special, even if this *was* love, it wouldn't change the fundamental reality that both the beloved and the brahman itself are bound to impermanence.

"I am forever / Until I am" becomes the poem's philosophical centre. Forever IS real within existence. The witness consciousness genuinely experiences itself as permanent. And simultaneously, that forever has an expiry date. Both truths coexist without contradiction.

That's what makes the ending land so hard. Twenty-three lines of the brahman asserting its superiority, its detachment, its eternal nature... and then three words that accept the final truth without flinching. Even this ends. Even I will cease.

Not defeat. Not despair. Just unflinching acknowledgment of how things actually are.

The beloved wanted their flickering noticed as love. The brahman says: I notice everything, you're not special, and besides – we're both temporary anyway. One of us just lasts longer.

Brutal clarity, dressed as philosophy, delivered cold.

weed

I found a weed growing in my window sill

I touched it gently, potted it

It grew into an orchid, a Vanda

It then grew till it blocked my sun light

It was out of love, or so I thought

Yet it was control, and no explanation would state otherwise

I watered ot still, for the other rooms were bright

One day it died, I shed a tear

For the leaves that grew inwards had blight

It wasn't my love that killed it

I cleaned my window of the dead remains

Until the next 

Do whatever

I bought a papaya, and such is how it begins

In my mind there is contempt about this action, for I despise Papayas

It stinks like body odour, from a person with unwashed arm pits 

Yet I found it in my heart to buy this, to thin my blood 

Mine is a deep red, a few points above the maximum

But then again, everything about me is, 

Not just iron

The ability to take irrational decisions, a skill at this point

Right beside senseless writing, and mindless blanking of thoughts I frequently delve into

I hate Papaya, so maybe I bought it to bitch and whine

Regardless, I will eat it for breakfast at half past nine.