Notes from the Hermit’s Cave is what this blog is called. I promised to publish musings or notes of all sorts: your regular text blog; photos or other pictures; poems; and other assorted bit and pieces.

Well, I’ve rediscovered a poem that I think would be great to share with you.

Looking through some posts saved from old blogs no longer active, I came across theaforementioned poem. It’s about a guy I met in a cafe in India back in 2006. This person kept me and a crowd of other travellers spellbound for a couple of hours one monsoon afternoon. Not to mention the many conversations focused on him that followed in the next few days and the several pages in my Journal recounting the whole experience.

Anyway, as soon as I saw this poem again, I thought I just have to post it here. That trip was a big step for me in my own healing and spiritual journey. And meeting this guy has played a part in all that.

So, please join me in making this small offering of thanks to that guy, whose actual name I never learned, and who forever will be known to several very fortunate travellers as the Cockroach Man

THE COCKROACH MAN

This is what he said.
He’d lived many years in India,
and, in that time he’d done many things.
Even, he said, for a while he’d trained with a yogi, his guru.
This is what he said.

Yogic training is not easy, he said,
In fact, he said, one aspect made him sick
for a year.
This is what he said.

His Guru put beings in his head.
Beings like parasites he said.
Yes, yogic training, it made him sick.
This is what he said.

Parasites implanted in the head? A part of yogic training?
No. I don’t think so.
Actually, inserted was the word he used.
‘inserted beings in my head.’
This is what he said.

All gone now, save one, he said.
Only one remains—it’s like a cockroach.
And it’s still in him making him sick.
This is what he said.

At night, he said, there is sometimes relief.
The cockroach leaves and floats just below the ceiling.
Well, its astral body leaves his head and floats above his bed.
This is what he said

‘You’re a healer. You understand,’
is what he says as he turns to me.
Umm, no. Actually I don’t.
But this is not what I said.

Where is he now, the Cockroach Man?
‘It’s winter soon. I’m gonna give blankets
to the villagers.’
This is what he said.

He’s known suffering, he said.
And you could tell he was tired
from fighting the cockroach.
‘I’ll feed the poor.’
This is what he said.