The Sun and The Rainbow

THIS TOO IS HER LOVE

(The background of this poem is the following letter, dated May 11, 1955, to the Mother: "1 was waiting for you outside your bathroom yesterday. When you came out, you did not look at me at all. I couldn't understand why and it was simply awful — but, as always, I tried to feel that every act of yours is really a grace to me and is meant to remould me into the Divine Truth. The incident moved me to write a poem. Here it is — a symbolic transcription of my faith — but, of course, I hope I shan't have to write such poems very often.")

This too is her love — that with unseeing gaze

She goes as if I were but empty space.

Not my poor soul's ill-carven presence now

But all the dreamed perfection, the pure brow

And falterless foot of the God unborn in me,

The white Absence of my mortality

Her eyes are fixed on, calling into time

The Eternal Truth whose gold my days begrime

And teaching me the time-transfigurant art

To make her alchemy's crucible my heart.

When self-submerged in her vision's depth, I cease

To my own thought and grow a nameless peace,

Then all that's crude will fade to an apocalypt flare

And ever her-eyes will rest on the light laid bare

By my dense clay she treats now like thin air!

10.5.1955

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The Mother read the poem carefully and then, turning to the writer, said: "But I did look at you."The writer protested: "How is it I never saw you doing it?" The Mother coolly replied: "I did it from the corner of my eye." This evoked the plea: "That won't do, Mother. Please be more direct in the future."

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