Passion…unbridled

My joints creak and ache, my muscles feel sore

I don’t even feel like myself anymore

I carry my personal summer with me

Through air conditioned rooms, sweating profusely

My internal alarm clock loves to wake me

At the ungodly morning hour of three

I toss and turn, unable to sleep again

I wake up exhausted and in pain

Any part of my body can act up any day

Inflammation seems to have found a way

To infiltrate every fiber of my being

And mysterious symptoms I am now seeing

Sometimes my vision gets blurry out of the blue

I forget mid-sentence what I was trying to do

My brain seems to have turned into mush

I get more impaired when I try to rush

I start catastrophizing , wondering if this would be

My new normal or a progressive descent into insanity

*

Then I read about how estrogen loss at my

age

Causes all these symptoms, plus uncontrollable rage

The fact that this is natural does not provide

Enough comfort to me, this perimenopausal ride

Has made life miserable in both professional and personal domains

If nothing else, I just want to get rid of the muscle and joint pains..

The portal through which my patients can communicate with me

Has been overflowing with messages, and I cannot answer each one satisfactorily

This is a growing problem that healthcare providers face

For AI to get involved, this would theoretically be a good place..

*

Recently I had a message from a caregiver who seemed to be

Exhausted from her increasing caregiving responsibility

As her patient seemed to be on a downward slide

There was nothing I could do that would provide

A solution to her problems or even give her comfort

As I stared at the screen making a dispirited effort

To reply, an AI-generated answer popped up before me

It used a soothing tone and for the caregiver expressed empathy

But the AI-generated reply her concerns did not address

I read the well-worded answer, and I was not impressed

*

I am constantly being offered suggestions on how to reply

To my patients, the answer being crafted by AI

Not once have I found a reply that I could use

AI is obsequious and sycophantic, and I cannot choose

Words that ring so hollow and so different from what I would say

I would rather leave messages unanswered than reply to them this way..

*

AI can write emails and make them sound nice

But when patients reach out to me for medical advice

They want my opinion, not generic gibberish from a chatbot

Therefore replies to patient queries, AI shall answer not

So I heard a segment on the radio about two types of vacation that someone would take

One an adventure vacation, and the other a vacation in which they would make

Time and space just for reading-albeit at an aesthetic place

Away from home, where they would embrace

The bliss of reading all day and into the night-

This would, in my book, be vacation done right..

*

After hearing this, I want to design a reading vacation too

But time is limited, and I have plenty to do

My hopes have been raised quite unexpectedly

By a surprise chunk of time off, it is up to me

To while it away or wisely use my vacation

I have decided to try out this new recommendation

*

So for each day of vacation a new place I shall find

And with a curated collection of books I shall unwind

A reading vacation has been long overdue

To read, rest and rejuvenate, this is my cue

Some days I worry I am not doing enough

I try to increase my efficiency and do more stuff

If I spend my time in frivolous pursuits, guilt gnaws at me

Time must not be wasted, it is a precious commodity..

*

Then there are days when my workload I want to decrease

I want to take a break and rest for as long as I please

Some responsibilities that I had added to my plate

I want to relinquish in my exhausted state

*

I want to be productive, and never seem to know

Where to draw the line, therefore I go

From one extreme to the other, never satisfied

With what I am doing, I am unable to decide

Which one of the two I should prioritize-

Constant hustling or intermittent rest- it would be wise

To choose rest at this late hour anyway

And leave the conundrum for another day

Turn off the lights, so that birds can fly obstacle-free

Let them not be confused when they see

Bright lights shining through skyscraper windows

Give them dark skies, let them follow

The stars at night, as they are programmed to do

Let them complete their flights using natural cues

*

Migratory birds cover hundreds of miles at night

And the skyglow from light pollution interferes with their flight

Attracted to lit buildings, they circle around

Leading to depletion of their energies profound

Sometimes they have tragic, deadly collisions

With glass windows that play tricks with their vision

*

The skies were meant to be dark at night

But our streets and buildings are lit far too bright

Many cities have implemented a policy of “lights out”

Realizing that tall office buildings can do without

Leaving lights on at night- in this case

Two birds can be saved with one stone when this policy is embraced

Both migratory birds and energy costs benefit

When at night skyscrapers are left unlit

*

We have disrupted the natural order, solutions lie with us too

Sometimes going back in time is the best thing we can do

I have 45678 unread emails languishing in my inbox right now

I am scratching my head, wondering how I could allow

The accumulation of such a mind-boggling number of e-mails

This is just another reminder of how I have failed

To control the chaos in my life, I seem to live

In a perpetual state of overwhelm, and something’s got to give…

*

Most of the e-mails are promotional in nature, but embedded in the pile

Are a few crucial messages, it would take me a while

To sift through them and keep the ones I need

I wonder what to make of the e-mails I never did read

Perhaps they appeared important at the time they were received, but do not right now

I have to work on getting rid of the useless ones somehow

Without spending my limited time on this exercise

I select e-mails and click delete, and a few minutes later realize

That I have cleared my inbox en-masse and all my important e-mails have been deleted

In one impulsive stroke, my task has been completed

*

Relevant e-mails from the trash folder I am still trying to retrieve

But at least my inbox has been cleared up, and I breathe a sigh of relief

A parcel arrived at my doorstep, quite unexpectedly

I smelled it before I saw it and I knew instantly

That the package contained mangoes achingly sweet

Alphonso mangoes that had ripened in the scorching heat

Of parental love, mangoes were the epitome

My in-laws had gone to great lengths to send these mangoes to me

*

As my family feasted on the delectable fruit

I was inspired to wax poetic about mangoes being emblematic of my roots

But the internet obviously learnt my intent

And I unexpectedly began to see content

Focused on the “mango diaspora”, the trope South Asians were advised

To avoid in their writing by a celebrated author who had realized

That an overused metaphor for the longing of an immigrant the mango had become

Using a mango to describe a connection to the homeland was unwelcome

*

It may be cliched but it is true that mangoes, especially the exquisite Alphonso

Evoke a sense of nostalgia that is difficult to forgo

When South Asian writers use the mango in a metaphorical sense

It is actually a reflection of their lived experience

*

I was going to write about the nostalgia evoked by eating mangoes

But instead to write about why I should not, I chose…

Tens of lines started, and tens of lines erased

Writer’s block has its ugly head raised

It has been an hour of staring at a screen

But incapable of writing a verse I have been

In this past hour, I’ve been desperately trying to find

A subject that generates some curiosity in my mind

But my mind has been wandering, unwilling to stay

On one subject long enough to write about it coherently today

*

Most days I am able to overcome writer’s block

But today it is lodged in my brain like a rock

I go over my day to see if anything interesting occurred earlier in the day

But the day had been ordinary in every way

So here I am, waxing eloquent about the lack of inspiration

And writing about it to show towards writing my dedication

In the world that is to come

Your most prized possession your attention shall become

*

There are powerful forces at play

Trying to snatch your attention away

Each time at your smartphone you glance

You give the unscrupulous corporate world a chance

To take complete control of your attention

Keeping you addicted is their nefarious intention

*

Treat your attention like the valuable currency it has become

Use it wisely so that you can overcome

The urge to mindlessly scroll on your phone

Your attention must be dispensed by you, and you alone

Let no social media app steal your attention from you

Your ability to pay attention is a superpower too

(A large data center is being built in the aid region of New Mexico, this is the subject of the poem)

The land is parched, the trees are dying

The river is mostly sand, its aquifers are drying

But the inexorable march of technology continues here

A massive data center is being built, inciting fear

Of worsening water shortages for agricultural use

Residents wonder why powerful companies had to choose

This semi-arid land to build a project that obligates

Large amounts of water to cool down the servers it operates..

*

Deeper and deeper people drill to tap into the sinking water table

Searing drought, low snowpack and climate change have enabled

The drop in water levels- in this context building a data center seems to be

The height of indifference and tone-deafness to me

*

The march of AI cannot proceed without guardrails

Data centers cannot flourish where communities fail

To sustain themselves in the face of changing patterns of climate

The living world needs water- data centers can wait

You should not judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a book

By its opening line that has the ability to get you hooked

A cryptic, odd, bizarre or thought-provoking line

Or one that sends a shiver down your spine

A line so intriguing that it draws you into the story

A line powerful enough to lodge permanently in your memory

*

Being able to carve the perfect opening statement

Is to the author’s writing prowess a testament

Through the first line the stage is set for the readers to see

What the author wants to show them through the story

I’ve selected books based on a terrific first line

And almost always the books have turned out fine

*

Let me open the first chapter of the book in hand, and read the first line

Let me judge whether reading the book is worth my time…

When I’m at a loss for ideas, writing prompts I do not use

Ideas for my daily writing practice I try to choose

From my experiences, or the news stories I read

Using a prompt feels like I am trying to spoon-feed

The writer in me, by giving it material ready-made

I doubt I would give my work a passing grade

*

For years I have looked at the use of writing prompts with disdain

From using borrowed ideas as crutches I have always refrained

But sometimes I can find absolutely nothing about which to write

In those moments when lack of inspiration I fight

I wonder if I should search for writing prompts on the internet

Choose one that piques my curiosity, and gets

My dormant creative juices flowing freely

Such that I craft a poem representing the authentic me