A splendid painting I saw long ago
And the soul in it seemed to say, That the heavenly gleam in those eyes
Watches over us night and day.
A soft breeze carried its perfume
And calm the deep sense of its songs;
A memory awoke of the past,
And crumbled the embodied wrongs.
From it an authentic voice surged, —
Like a great wave on a shoreless sea;
A new world is born, it proclaimed,
A world of love which is death-free.
Through the ages someone toiled,
To claim the flames of the sky, There was the God's sacrifice
Willing the Will of the High.
He lit an intense gold-bright fire
And offered all life to the spirit;
From across solar widenesses
Came a wideness earth to win in it.
09/07/98 4:10PM
Page 31
A dewdrop sat on a leaf
Drinking orange of the morn;
And sang, "In the mortal world
Someone is wishing to be born."
In the evening a glow-worm
Quivered at the garden-gate;
She said, "Among mortal creatures
Dearest to me is my gleamless mate."
A lonely star burned in the sky
Undaunted by the enormous night;
And said, "Of the mortal lot
I take care with my deathless light."
09/07/98 4:39 PM
Page 32
I am trying to be like a lamp
That burns in a windless space, Breathe a lonely joy of the sky
And my worldly griefs displace.
Therefore I stop casting shadows
And get ready to walk the way;
I hold in my heart, in its calm,
A tender flame, — with it to pray.
I may rise and fall, and know not
Where would the little barge drift, But there is someone within me
Who tells how to receive the gift.
Flowers are perfumed, days bright,
And certainly weep I need no more;
Clouds come from the south-west
And on me the rains pour and pour.
O the marvel, a lamp made of clay
Singing to great love for its flame! Will then not love come and stay
This worldly me for itself to claim?
10/07/98 3:45 PM
Page 33
Up to the mountain ridge
Once a one-eyed doe strayed;
But there was a lonely hut
Where a lonely hunter stayed.
She could not see the valley
That deepened on her right;
But then felt an arrow whiz, —
She knew her mate in fright.
Swifter than death's weapon
She leaped beyond the cloud:
In a sky where burn stars of love
Doe-eyed souls to her bowed.
10/07/98 5:05 PM
Page 34
This morning in my tranquil vision I saw
A host of white peacocks dance in a forest;
The early rain glistened in the early light,
And forest trees and creepers were in it drest.
There was the happy peace, bright and true,
And true were the birds to their happy songs;
Colours of the sky spread everywhere
To gather which came happy angel throngs.
Sweetness was full and flowing like a river
Hasteningly ran for the calm sea in heaven;
From that cloister of peace, emerald holiness,
The Rishis who radiantly went up were seven.
Even as they reached that dazzling world
A golden-footed flame walked unto them;
Prized gifts of immortal things it gave, —
Undimming splendours of its realm.
But they wished one boon to be granted,
For the forest where the peacocks danced;
In that holy peace rose a sudden chant
Such indeed as again its holiness enhanced.
Athwart it speeded rapturous chariots,
Indra and Agni's, the Wind's, of the Sun-God;
And the wood buzzed in lucent peace,
And peace became their perfection's abode.
11/07/98 3:04 PM
Page 35
A blind man sat there alone, In the lengthening shadow of a temple wall;
People who came to pray At the temple told me he was the wisest of all.
I went and humbly asked him,
"O sage, what path of wisdom did you follow
Blind since birth as you are?
Sitting here the way to God you seem to know."
"Blindness gave me this sight," He said, "showed me this path to see the song;
I see God 0 where you are, Even as would a deaf hear the loud temple gong.''
And the deaf man told me, "O hear what the moon says, the stars, the sun;
I can swear as they hurry They raise a chant in praise of the silent One."
11/07/98 9:25 PM
Page 36
I suffer no ache of nothingness,
And the sweet fragrance of flowers fills my air;
I have felt even in the tiniest bit
The same joy which of the mountains takes care.
A magic bird sits on a magic tree
And' a wandering cloud goes from sky to sky;
Palace halls dream in chandelier lights
And the dreaming huts do not dreamings belie.
O the world now that is not, will be!
But then I was having queer ideas about things;
The singer who lives within me
Is just mute, like music lacking the silver strings.
The waves are not hollow waves
And all these colours do not an illusion weave;
The boat that dances with the breeze
Is a floating house where beauty intends to live.
Nothing is strange, nothing untrue,
And everywhere present the same happy spirit;
Dissolve the self that is not self
And know the world's merit as God's own merit.
12/07/98 8:27 AM
Page 37
The wind blew from the South And carried soft fragrance of a dream;
And my wise heart fell asleep Forgetting pride, forgetting self-esteem.
Grapes hung from the vines And a sweetness dripped in earth's mouth;
Love was the love of God Who came out from a shrine in the South.
The trees grieved no more And flowering songs the birds gave to earth;
And in the suddenness Of love came my soul to the world of birth.
The suns that long waited Rode the chariots drawn by white horses;
Through bodies of truth Immortal breath of life's joy now courses.
12/07/98 10:48 AM
Page 38
"How many whelps you gave birth to?" — To a lioness asked her forest friends. "But a prince and with a princely mane, In whose roar roar of the fire blends."
"How many colours make your bow?" — Asked the white to the arc of the sky. "The colour of joy is my favourite, To see which you need a singular eye."
"How many shadows did you cast
When the pale moon drifted in the night?"
And the spirit replied to the boy,
"But then one yet stayed in the daylight."
"How many years from eternity
Did you take to fashion our time?"
"I forgot to count the hours," replied God;
"Lulled to sleep I was by your rhyme."
12/07/98 4:10PM
Page 39
A new dawn came from a sky of peace
And the grasses stirred with the wind;
Mute Nature in it awoke and took a road
A song, a poem of happy tunes to find.
Sight became swift and astronomic,
And footfall of silence the ears heard;
Tranquil heart bore no anguish to beat
And needed was no thought, no word.
Faith grew pure and wide, spontaneous,
And knowledge poured from a high cloud;
Old death was no longer a prop for life,
Instead life only its perfect sense allowed.
Six times did the soundless bell ring
And six seasons speeded just in one hour;
Amber-hued was the breeze that came
Carrying the time-transcendent's power.
Spirit found a house to dwell in birth,
Not a gloomy rented place, lifeless room, But a bright house for the stars to stay:
A flame was seeded in Matter's womb.
13/07/98 2:54 PM
Page 40
Monday morning just at 4 o'clock I heard a sudden sound, As though some impatient spirits Were moving around.
"Give us our share," was their shout From across the street;
"Our viand and our wine in red pots, Our choicest treat."
No oil-lamp burned in the temple, None slept in the yard;
The trusted watchman had gone home, Leaving God himself to guard.
Alarmed, the seeress from her face Tore the night's veil;
Compassionate eyes poured peace Happy dawn to hail.
13/07/98 4:40 PM
Page 41
I have won a deep silence
And in it I hear the sea's roar;
To me come dream-boats,
Dreams of the other shore.
A swift force of fire is set
Into motion and collapse Crowded cities of the past,
Of sorrows too perhaps.
Whatever belonged to me
My habits, my feelings, Songs, are now left behind,
All these quotidian dealings.
O the tongue of bright flame
For my fearless speech;
What a sacrifice is lit!
And it no death can reach.
Whatever my fondnesses,
Now the guests must exit;
Sacred emotions of love
To find in the loving spirit.
14/07/98 4:30 PM
Page 42
Once on a road to Athens
Two poets met at the noon hour;
One praised hexametric gods,
The other his house and bower.
Two frogs croaked in a pond,
And said, "Queer the village folk. We can be in and out of life
If only we know how to croak."
"I know your appetite's small,"
Said the Priestess to Reason;
"But go and wed White Passion
In this jolly holiday season."
On their way to the Ganges
Two hurrying streams met by a shrine;
For his holy dip will its old god,
They asked, join the pilgrim-line?
Word and Sense went to market
To buy a kilo of sweet potatoes;
But finding prices a bit too high
Just bargained for their shadows.
14/07/98 4:57 PM
Page 43
In search of a Red Rose I set out on a journey
And travelled along a stream, across hill and land;
I trod many seasons of grief and pain, of hunger,
And saw dreaming shadows walk hand in hand.
Maybe a few thousand years passed this way,
Of mythic wakefulness and of ancestral sleep;
And yet another thousand rose in a true answer
That in moods of silver-mauve I need not weep.
But all this must end like a comic, end forever, —
Wounds of heart, teardrops from foolish eyes;
The blackbird song, time-torture, must withdraw,
And make room for the Red Rose's enterprise.
The sages say the fields are rain-green, happy,
And the sky is blue and happy the gentle breeze;
Without danger you may soar like a little bird, —
Because the foundation of the world is in peace.
And the night is there for the stars to twinkle,
And the day for flaming hours to carry the gold;
True, quite true, there is death tied to the leg of life,
But the heritage of life is a joy unknown, untold.
15/07/98 8:35 AM
Page 44
Bill Clinton went to China
Befriending her old jiang Zemin;
They talked of booming trade
But chose to avoid Tiananmen.
Atalji sent a letter around
And his Pokhran justified;
"O Brahmin, and for what?"
From heaven the gods cried.
True, Zidane was their hero,—
But Ronaldo's stomach-ache? Champs Elysees in revelry
Making football victory a fake.
Hussain thought it artistic,
To put on thick canvas a nude;
"Forgive him, he knows not;
Purity is past Hussainhood."
As usual the village potter
Was at work shaping his pots;
In the school when God saw
Children he had afterthoughts.
15/07/98 5:20 PM
Page 45
How many lives has death granted to me?
Nine lives, they say, a cat has — nine to die;
In the deeps of silence deeper than night
Nine dreams of loneliness nine times cry.
A sudden hue spreads goldening the morn,
And its joy weaves a white jasminean garland;
A sweet scented wind lifts up the early birds,
As if life has come a newness to understand.
Now from the alert edge of the sky arrives
Swift-footed destiny to prepare a bright day;
And all the sorrows that had Filled the past
Like mist just uncomplainingly fade away.
But then in gorgeousness of time to be born
The deepening depth of eternity awaits:
And so birth is escorted by death's shadow,
Death who has nine lives, to cross nine gates.
But death can cross the ninth gate only if
A sacrificial fire is kindled in the heart;
Then will the being be carried in a surge,
A great surge new divinity to body impart.
16/07/98 3:37 PM
Page 46
"Where to burn? How to burn?" Asked the tender flame. "Like a lamp? Like a forest fire Fiery rapture to claim?"
"Is the night deep? occult enough?" Asked the little star. "Fathomless like space, fervescent, Where galaxies are?"
"Where do I awake? Where sleep?" Asked the golden dream. "I can hold you, I can carry you," Answered the gleam.
"Can the pond contain me, will it?" Asked the red lotus. "Yes; its wish is one with your wish, One and joyous."
"Will the Garden of the Giant smile?"
Asked the butterflies.
"See, the spring-children are coming
With souls in their eyes."
16/07/98 4:50 PM
Page 47
I taste the bliss of the sky,
I know the joy of the spring;
I have seen the orange peaks
Where the coloured birds sing.
Victories have come to me
As do leaves to the trees;
Thoughts of ants and stars
In my thoughts I seize.
A vastness grows in my heart •
And makes all emotions mine;
Whatever I will, whatever I do,
Time works out in that design.
I need not wrestle with shadows,
The meaning of death I grasp;
Subtle senses in me have awoken
The invisible presence to clasp.
From the calm fields of dream
Winds bring to me hopes of love;
And hopes are ardencies of faith
Born of soul in spirit to move.
17/07/98 10:10 AM
Page 48
Sprinkle the colours,
Scatter many notes;
Morn and eve in them
Happy my poem floats.
Here and there you want
A bit of thought;
There and here wish
For some human plot, —
Betrayal of love,
A measure of pain, In the cattle show
Tinge of cattle-bane.
What sense the words
If they do not sob? Robbers of life they
The joys of life rob.
Oh you mean a life
Raw, bare, as it is;
Lizard chasing a moth,
Youth locked in kiss.
These shadow figures
Cast on a shadow wall, Are but shadow thoughts
Of the Master of all.
Page 49
Dying day, dying night,
And a child weeping, In other darknesses
All the stars sleeping,
Pale fleeting hours,
Grim moments of death, And birth large-eyed
In the lack of faith,
A prophet gazing
Into dimness of space, Hyena and crocodile
Each in its own place, —
But dismiss this all
If you wish to see What really they are,—
In the world of poetry.
Swiftness of flame,
Sharpness of hue, A suggestive mood
Is truer than the true.
Catch the subtle sound,
Greenness in the green, — For poem of seer bird
Is poem of the unseen.
17/07/98 3:42 PM
Page 50
The moon arose in a scarlet-sky And stood above the ancient ghoulish town;
The weaver was still at his loom Weaving dreams which were dark-brown.
One went to the crowded bazaar
To buy a sword of sharp historic steel,
Trademark of murderous time
Who across ages held only sanguinary weal.
Between the warp and the woof The second found for itself an inky place;
And then it made a gaudy cross Which forebode for every dream disgrace.
Another chased a fleshy woman, Her soul as if caught in a red cage of flesh;
And children she bore were shades Of desire who yet these dreams immesh.
But rushed a swift dream-hound And a full moon arose behind the eclipse;
Then came a white weaver-dream With a dream in hand and a song on his lips.
That old weaver of yester-years,
Who had all life in tenuous dream of death
Threaded mysteries of hope,
Took it to weave in unphantomed breath.
18/07/98 5:03 PM "
Page 51
I turned the pages
Of an old old poetry journal;. It was from a town
Celebrating the things vernal.
Rhymed were the verses
Written with the zeal of a sketch-pen;
But there were ardent songs
As at times are sung by lonely men.
And few were quite a surprise
Fashioned on a soundless route;
Their tunes carried emotions
To give speech even to the mute.
But in that small town
One day one witty poet sang, With the tongue of a frog
And perfectly in frog-slang:
"But these worn-out words?
And for whom these old thoughts? Drive them from your alleys,
All these old crumbling town-cots."
Now in these noisy lanes
Vendors sell their merchandise To synthetic poets and frogs
As a neo-poetic enterprise.
18/07/98 6:05 PM
Page 52
Six Brahmins once went to the Forest Dweller
And humbly prayed for knowledge of the Eternal, What he eats, how lives in beast and man and tree,
Begetter of creatures, manywise, and paternal.
Freedom he gives and our fates too fashions,
We take his wings and his bright roses smell;
Gigantic mountains and swift streaming rivers
Rush or stand about his great moods to tell.
Six mighty breaths he breathes in life and death,
Of these first five in the body and last in the sky;
Six worlds he has set up in them to take food,
Cooked in sun and household fires that never die.
He has put sight in the eye, word on the tongue,
That he may look into Matter and speak of it;
He broods on the Syllable and does sixfold work,
By abiding in work to ever abide in the Spirit.
Verses make his path and take him to earth, —
O to conquer for him these six mortalities! Out of the unmanifest he conies into birth
And kindles gold flames to flame rapidities.
18/07/98 9:00 PM
Page 53
Exists no move the house
That once held my pain and grief;
And I have left shadows behind,
Worldly joys that are brief.
Instead I hear deeper sounds
Coming from intimate solitude, — Burdened with tranquil thoughts
Half-visible half-understood.
O the marvel! in my little garden
Gather flaming hues, grow flowers;
Their fragrance is gentle and true,
Smiles those of blossoming hours.
Inner infinities awake,
And one by one the radiant gods;
Arrival of the immortal birth
My heart applauds and applauds.
"What more be done, what more?"
Softly asks in its victory my soul;
To live a dream in embodied dream
Is wine-rapture of its dream-goal.
Maybe long ago I was surrounded
By animal wants and jealous men;
Unkindnesses had been my friends,
And ingratitude, and the other ten.
Page 54
Torture and sorrow, failure, defeat,
A ship tossed by the violent storm, — That had been my fate all through,
That the opprobrium, the norm.
On thorny bushes of my days
Used to sit birds but without a song;
It was a helpless wistful sight,
Weary spectacle perhaps for too long.
A ghost would go from place to place
With coconut shells around its neck;
A string of horoscopes fashioned
Memories its dead self to bedeck.
I was alone, — in pain of sleep,
Hoodwinked by the dream-icons;
My thoughts bore black doubts,
My fondnesses a world of moans.
Hence my dauntless martyr spirit
Had cried: "For freedom I yearn, Freedom from that deathful habit;
Yes! in me new fires must burn.
I cannot be fettered to passions,
Be bound to silly nothing's will, My tale not an idiot tale of rounds,
Of a dull bullock tied to the mill.
I know why I have chosen to be
In the world though full of gloom;
The cave in which once I lived
Needn't remain an old cave of doom.
Page 55
Presently I set afloat at dusk
Clay-lamps on the stream of time;
And the currents carry them
To ocean-hush in hastening chime.
In my temple a thousand bells ring,
And a thousand eyes look at the One;
O the chants of many such worships,
All the rays turned towards the sun!
I see expectancy has to wake up
And surge like a flecked serpent, — With a moon-jewel on its hood
That the appalling spell be spent.
Now my heart is a buoyant rush
To mystic seas which have no shore;
It deepens into its own emerald
As if its fervent depths to explore.
Its rapids are rapidities of fulgence,
And quietude welcome companion;
Charms of night, miracles of day
Through its many moods run and run.
Calm inner strength holds me up,
The way the gods the sky uphold;
Days have become my march,
Nights winsome, .faithful and bold.
I have kindled hopes everywhere
And each star is a fiery promise;
Wherever I look, whatever I touch
All indeed a largesse of wonder is.
Page 56
O the silent metaphor of life,
Glad traveller of eternity! The sound of your feet echoes
Even before begins the journey.
Bring forth the soul of joy,
And bright flowers of the spring;
The wind will be soft and scented,
Sweet on trees the birds will sing.
The rivers will swell allwhere,
And happy flames to sky ascend;
Whatever ought to be true will be,
And the gods' long anguish end."
But there was a nobler martyrdom,
Luminous, godly, greater than mine;
It threw itself into a splendid fire
And blazed in that realness's sign.
It gathered its many riches,
Infinity piling gold upon infinity;
Held all that back from its sight
To discover some other divinity.
Out of its unknowable self
It made room for the vast night to be, Lighted surprises of the stars
In creative dazzle of its ecstasy.
On a speedy stream it set
Amazement of a universe afloat;
Gladly in that silver rush
Sailed time's spirit,— like a little boat.
Page 57
Emerald-blue of the waters
Made furrows of red and gold;
Along its widening banks
Flourished a mystery that is sevenfold.
A godhead came upon earth
Keeping aside the glory of his past;
Left deathless life behind
His crimson seeds in death to cast.
Persuading his soul to woo
Forbidding horror of dubious fate, Of falsehood in all things,
He crashed into the dim cheerless gate.
There is a wisdom pure and vast
Of yore in white blaze of the sun;
A world-heart beats in world-thrill
And in every heart is its love won.
In the silence of his spirit
A defeatless force is ever at work;
In the bright triumph of his joy
No evil can lie, no suffering lurk.
A might holding many mights,
And opulence of the triple name, Chose to walk in human steps
For the Almighty hilltop-shrine to claim.
In magnificence of his intent
To build a house for the Unborn, Of his self made a sacrifice which
Tall and tongueless flames adorn.
Page 58
Alone in wideness of God
He lived God's august work to do;
Immeasurable silence witnessed
In Matter's womb birth of the true.
Even his body's cells shone
As if countless suns were lit;
The Transcendent's power he housed
Where purple majesties sit.
To him thoughts came in serene
Intuitions from the original fount;
Calm words he spoke were words
That had strength death to surmount.
Truth's abidingness he firmed
In mortality's devious ways,— Made his breast a diamond cup
To hold its bliss, its rain and rays.
Nightly aeons had elapsed
For the days of all-love to dawn;
Now in its great resplendence
The wonder of wonders moves on.
Mortal birth he lifted to the sun
And the Will of the High in it willed;
A presence leaned down and things
Promised long ago are fulfilled.
18/08/98 2:58 PM
Page 59
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