Winter branches sway in the winds of the dusk
as if whispers were carried over from another world we once belonged to,
and we see the dawn opening up like your heart,
a soft magic somehow appears in our pockets,
two silhouettes exchange myths.
The wind chimes tell us everything.
Pain returns
but we continue to kneel.
Vaishali Paliwal
Snow blizzards take the world away.
Nothing, new or old, appears.
We keep waiting and waiting.
The cold air sinks in so deep,
there is only silence left,
so hauntingly of the wild.
Of the soggy earth,
last blade of grass,
moon against flags.
Everywhere you looked,
there was rupture of time.
The red cardinal found her nest, still.
©Vaishali Paliwal
Prayer pulls the light.
Prayer pulls the light
from the skies
and the birches.
The heart grows,
spreads streams of mercy.
Rivers turn into seas,
my enemies rest.
I have promised you my grief,
my beloved.
I have given you all my nights.
The first word
and its morning,
I take now.
I take your name.
Vaishali Paliwal
The golden fawn has been traveling through.
Picking at the dry branches of winter,
he carries a memory.
There is a red berry.
There is silence, like God.
Snow continues to fill—
this world.
What would be left of it?
What were these forests built from?
Time after time, I write the same poem.
The same fear of ending .
The same end.
Vaishali Paliwal
December 15, 2025
I have fed my soul tonite
with nectar of beauty and grace
but if it wasn’t for my pilgrim
I would be throwing rocks at myself
still—
still I would be chasing mirrors so terrible.
Vaishali Paliwal
A meeting that leaves the body tense, the mind replaying, the spirit dimmed.
Rather than resolving the moment or assigning fault, the episode pauses inside the question that often follows such encounters: What was I actually meeting? And what was meeting me?
It reflects on how modern working life (hierarchy, urgency, deadlines, and performance) shapes the way we relate to one another, often replacing presence with defensiveness and trust with strategy. What we meet in these moments is rarely just another person, but the accumulated weight of pressure, fear, and survival carried by everyone in the room.
The episode explores how this quiet erosion of gentleness becomes a kind of soul-betrayal and how simply noticing it can create a small opening. Not to fix the encounter, but to remember the human heart beneath the tension.
A reflection on mistrust, pressure, and the slow, patient possibility of finding a way back to ease.
Father, this moment is long.
It stretches in a way that morning is taking her time to begin.
Sun, slow in her rising.
We can forget the polarities here and imagine anything, nothing.
I have been asked to sit with a question.
I have been repeating it with whispers.
I am not really saying anything other than your name.
Vaishali Paliwal
In this opening episode of Moonwater, I reflect on what happens when even the most peaceful environments don’t bring the ease we expect, and the quiet pressure to fix that absence.
Drawing on Martin Buber’s idea of encounter, this episode considers what it means to meet the world without treating it as something that owes us calm, comfort, or repair.
An invitation to sit with the natural order of things — even when it doesn’t soothe us.
Freedom, I am grateful.
I do not know what absence of air feels like.
I can sleep under stars
without fire falling.
I can drink my water
without poison.
I know my privileges—
my source,
my teacher.
I surrender to you
as a part of me as a part of you.
Complete.
Vaishali Paliwal
Frozen river reflects the light of the moon,
tiny lights of the season spread wide,
and it should make my heart melt
into a tender stream.
But I remember the end—
how would the grave of my beloved be
in this harsh winter,
how would he be unappearing.
Just like my grief, how unseen and eternal.
Vaishali Paliwal
Moonwater 