Once I went to the garden
And found that there were no flowers;
I looked into my watch
But from it had vanished all the hours.
From sky to deeper sky
In search of a home the birds flew;
Although twinkling in night
Depth of the night the stars never knew.
I read many a book
Yet of meaning the words were devoid;
I saw in the nothing
Only strange reasons of nothing employed.
But then I seized the arrow
Whizzing through the vacuous air;
And made it a rushing flame
Who could life's swiftnesses bear.
With a master-key in hand,
Oh to be active eternity! I walk from peak to unseen peak
And claim that many-hued fire for me.
19/06/98 2:21 PM
Page 1
I wait upon thy will in my soul
Be it mystical night or the day, Assured in quiet adoration
Along the quiet unerroneous way.
My heart is full of peace
With nothing, nothing to speak, There is the light that grows
A greater light to seek.
The day broadens and turns
Into thorough gold of the noon, And the night deepens in hush
To be one with the silver moon.
Even my body falls mute
And just sends its silent word, — As if to reach a new richness
Nothing be said, nothing stirred.
The way is not long, nor weary,
When in thee I put all my trust, I have one will and one, —
Indeed what thou wiliest, I must.
20/06/98 2:21 PM
Page 2
I was asleep in a strange new dream
When the dream broke out like an ocean Flowing into a ceaseless sparkling stream
From eve to morn in a quiet complaintless motion.
Peace became dense and serene
And the night-watchers one by one went away To a world of calm, — which would mean
Call of tranquil air would soon herald the day.
Suddenly along the far horizon-line
Ran dewy orange as though it was sure to bring Yester-gold of silence and it combine
With new songs the birds are about to sing.
Since then nothing seems worthless,
Paltry, inconsiderable, and nothing limits sets:
Sky after sky opens to a truer wideness
And I see the speck of dust too as the Infinite's.
21/06/98 10:02 AM
Page 3
I saw a strange new aura around your head That seemed something new to tell,
That the magic of the sky that holds the stars Is coming here soon for ever to dwell.
It will make the streams flow upward, Tend in our hearts fruit-bearing trees;
From the crimson seeds shall spring up again Diamond-loaded branches of ecstasies.
There will be sweet and enchanting voices Not climbing up from the floor of the valley,
But leaning down from the luminous hush Great rhythms ,of truth shaping truth daily.
This is not the charmed Lake of the Forest And no Lady owns the emerald-studded sword,
Yet purity is the one price that must be paid, - Price that comes in purity of the absolute Word.
I have seen in your face's timeless beauty Not only the phases of the growing spirit,
But hauntingly the wonder that wants to be Deathless in the spirit of life that is fire-lit.
21/06/98 3:27 PM r
Page 4
I went to the edge of timelessness To meet the God of Time;
But he was busy making the rounds In seasons of the far-off clime.
But I was keen to meet him some day And waited all the way through
And, perforce as I had to wait, started Thinking of the timeless true.
Someone had told me long back he was Just very indifferent and dull,
That he watched the sun and snow and rain Into sleep himself to lull.
He breathed the least even when awake, And sorrow and sacrifice
Never knew, nor knowledge nor ignorance, That death is love's price.
Even when he was put on the cross of pain Beyond suffering he seemed,
Never was a division mid time and timelessness That it be redeemed.
O the speaking hush, 0 the silent word The moulder and the moulded!
Could ever there be one or two or many, Folded or otherwise unfolded?
But then the God of Time had to arrive Forgetting the bride and the groom
And, before the bell rang at seven forty-five, Rush to the Dining Room.
22/06/98 2:21 PM
Page 5
I must get out of this dreamless sleep
And even in stretches of sand see Bounteous life, I must bring to its need
Gold of joy, bright, painless, free.
I commit hence no trespasses
When I look at the wide blue sky, For disdain to this doleful earth,
To songlessness does it least imply.
O give me the song of Fire
Orange and red in its hue, — For the primal bliss to breathe
As it ought, which is past due.
Out of innocence I must grow, —
But already I am a new-born child And hear echoes of the otherwhere
In my heart that no more is wild.
There come to me from the Far of Song
Swift and rich strains of experience, That more and more I gather them
Calm I stay in their confidence.
O the purity in this birth!
But then I must move yet farther on, — Not only in the star and the glow-worm,
It must be so even in the greyest stone.
This daily death one day must die,
This peculiar and useful violence too, And the singing God of Earth must sing
The song of the hushful and the true.
23/06/98 2:30 PM
Page 6
I have heard many songs in the course of time
But many more songs have remained unheard;
But then there is no end to the course of time
And there are yet wide silent spaces to be stirred.
All these hours must pass like fading dreams
And all the notions of life and its mystery Deepen into sleep that is God's one great gift
Holding in its joy revelation's strange memory.
I am not worried that there were wasted hours
Or that I spoke at times the vernacular of despair, For the unknown, the unseen, is a wondrous hope
And it carries the quiet flame up on the flaming stair.
But the sky there is not a misty or tenuous blue
Nor is my unsung song made of uncertain stuff, Now that the morn of morns, and the day of days,
Has come I tell you the unheard is not the far-off.
I might have lived unlived love for too long,
Cherished feelings that sharpen the points of pain;
But 'tis pain that pushes unhappy things behind, —
To such an extent that love it shall forever gain.
24/06/98 9:02 AM
Page 7
The waves of eternity,
Where do they go, where recede? Do they ride the shoreless sea
Somewhere else to get freed?
Is there a somewhere else for them
To disappear like songs into hush, A poem into which to melt
When the words rush and rush?
I thought the birds would soar
And vanish into upper sky, Pilgrims climb the temple steps
To merge into the greatest I.
But it seems that even in God
There are uncounted manynesses, As though from a splendid blank
Flamed out a myriad presences.
Wave after wave must roll on
Embracing eternity's days, Like birds in their wing-beat
A sky beyond sky yet to raise.
25/06/98 3':46PM
Page 8
"Make life a piece of art, picture, song,
A life of love to be ever true and free," — Said the poet who broke all the laws.
"Even though love be greater than art," said he.
O the famed song that knows no bondage,
A traveller whose footsteps echo everywhere, Echoes of love, of colours of the eve, of thought
That roam and roam with the roaming air!
But is this the end of what he does, the goal
Of his inconstant moods, and of his passions, Dim end of metaphors that carry deep burden
Of hopes and of a thousand frustrations?
But is not love a precious sacrifice,
The bird giving himself utterly to his mate, Even though on the tip of the arrow
Rides the piercing shadow of fate?
O the love of liberty to be an artist!
She is the one who believes in no reason, Who takes wings, dares the unmindful flight
In a sky above mediocrity of the season.
But strange, she demands his surrender!
For only would then she gift her graces, The grace of calm and the grace of song
That need bear no authorial traces.
Page 9
I have become one with the great art
And from regions of peace have come to me Sculpted dreams and stars and auras
In songful wonders to breathe flamingly.
"Make life a piece of art," said the artist.
"But around it put golden liberty's frame;
For, surely, you know how to sing and dance
In splendid freedom of the splendid game."
26/06/98 3:07 PM
Page 10
Nights have come, the scented nights,
And the dreams grow larger than the sky;
They may even be like a universe
Whose vision is the vision of a seeing eye.
And see, what great experiences flourish!
The countless stars blossoming on a tree, Waves surging from nowhere to allwhere,
Surging with the deep emerald of the sea.
Strange it may seem but the birds sing
A quiet song that deepens yet the quiet;
A visible beauty walks in the garden
And a singing mood waits upon the poet.
In such moments all is sweet, fragrant, glad,
In gladness that comes from the wondrous;
Intimate words are prescient and ever true
Telling the pain of death is no more for us.
Such were the nights long ago designed,
Dreaming fondnesses of bright heaven to admit;
For gifts of the nights are the rarest gifts
Of a bright-flaming dream that carries love in it.
27/06/98 2:21 PM
Page 11
Purple-tinged are now the clouds
And purple dreams drift in the night;
They have become songs in the sleep
Singing of purple of the day-bright.
And O why do you say, though true,
That purple life fades away, is brief? Because you see inspiriting purple
Just turn into unpurpled disbelief?
There is no doubt purple blooms
Rarely these days, once in a while, And rarer are the souls who love
The purple, love it with a smile.
Very often the gods snatch it away,
Snatch it for delight of their spouses, Pink-purple bosomed ones to dream
A dream that godly passion arouses.
Give not to it O the charmed purple
But awake it to the trueness of sleep, For the evanescent night has faded
In Purple that has come from Blue Deep.
28/06/98 9:09 AM
Page 12
What was the last word you spoke,
The word that began in the summer But had to run through the whole cycle
To meet its quiet confident drummer?
Surely he had to make things beat
First by bringing to the routine death, And surprise our world with his life,
A life that breathes integral Breath.
But indeed absolute is the love
That lives only in such self-giving;
The first word then is also the last,
Of the sacrifice that is true living.
You will then see the wind is lonely
In a deep hush of the woodland, And the cloud in the sky is calm
Its loaded meaning to understand.
It will tell you of the works of time
Done in the dull clime or else abroad To beget a small flower, to get a song,
And turn them all into works of God.
28/06/98 2:39 PM
Page 13
Every day comes with a new dawn, Dawn of the gorgeous east;
Her beauty can never be gathered In words, in thought the least.
But then it seems the lone aged priest Ringing the temple bell
In green and silent depth of the forest Knows her nature well —
Hears a voice rising from the midnight:
"Comes the queen of the day,
Open wide your spaces for her tread, For her to walk in her way.
"Let your simple heart will in her will, Adoration be the only speech."
Early hues have set him on the move In time the temple to reach.
Now do the birds get up betimely And fill the air with her praises,
And in their tranquil songs recite Glories that are this goddess's.
29/06/98 4:30 PM
Page 14
I looked at the star For the flame that shall ever burn in the heart;
I went to the sea If emerald of its peace to me it would impart.
I turned world-ward But it was pretty busy with the daily no things;
Then a bird disclosed Wherefrom had come its such colourful wings.
A child walked up to me And said in the garden were waiting seven gods;
But the backyard shouted:
"Believe him not, all they are just great frauds."
I glimpsed in the night A swan white and purple richly growing gold;
It looked as though Some trepidant soul suddenly became bold.
In my lifeful trance I saw a radiant woman long ago named Savitri;
The sky became a sun, The sun set afire by love who indeed is but she.
30/06/98 2:21 PM
Page 15
The flock of parrots went northward
To the fields north of imagination;
A coel sang early at morn in the east
From the mango tree east of creation.
The white crane looked at the south,
Of wisdom where lives the ever-wise;
Hornbill preferred to go to the west,
The west of the worldly enterprise.
Then came the sudden kingfisher,
Sudden in the revelation's speed;
The eagle rose to the dauntless sky
Where none can its winging exceed.
The blue-bird nestled in the heart
Deep in the heart of a bright flame;
But deeper yet inside is another,
As if a secret name within a name.
The swan of wide spaceless ether
Flew over the worlds across death;
The orange-breasted bird swept down,
Into birth carrying immortal breath.
01/07/98 8:30 AM
Page 16
O the world of life,
O the world that shouldn't be;
Dull drama of the day
Long night's melancholy.
Maybe dream will awake
And joy ripen into fruit;
But wishes here ride horses
Only themselves to loot.
Lonesome beggars
Roam in small clumsy streets;
Lonesome brown-nosers
Whom every pretender greets.
And Lear in prison,
And someone speaking wise;
But the voice of silence
Silenced by loud shrill cries.
O the time's timeless fool,
Playwright of the mad play;
Grey sketches of life drawn
On the unbaked pots of clay.
Hear the lizard's screech,
Look through the rabbit's eye;
Vengeance's the best, —
For love here nothing can buy.
Page 17
Burn the house, the town,
And hated be the raging fire;
But do it all very nobly,
Indeed on a high noble pyre.
Alas, alas, the great liar!
And so they call him God;
But then take the old broom
And with it make him nod.
This is the naive story
Which has no middle, — Between star and quark
Man's quite the riddle.
02/07/98 3:05 PM
Page 18
A huge glass is placed in the sky And its name is Hubble;
It sees a world born and vanish Just as does a soap bubble.
The dust gathers around nothing To form a cloud, a black hole;
Distances condense into a point And pole joins anti-pole.
Suddenly a star explodes at the edge And rises uncurling smoke;
Yes, there was a fire burning long ago Before time from space broke.
Now great masses are drifting, Drifting no one knows where;
But a red light is sent as a signal To tell what's happening there.
Everything is happening in the Void To create a universe;
Out of strange fluctuations it came To avoid the Void's curse.
03/07/98 2:24 PM
Page 19
Once my expectant soul moved
Through a quiet faery landscape;
Peacocks gave it gorgeous moods,
Enchanted songs a songly shape.
Fragrant arbours there climbed
To yet another sky of blueness;
Sweet were reveries and words
So very true in their trueness.
No fate weighed upon the heart
And clouds drifted in happy rain;
No lash of lightning crackled
And absent was death's pain.
My thoughts were at rest, my trees,
Blossoms, rhymes, full of peace;
In the green and glad aery world
Glad streams flowed to glad seas.
Wondrous though the land of joy
Yet treasured a longing my soul, — Puzzled it saw the veiled face of truth
And asked, "Is there for me a goal?"
04/07/98 3:00 PM
Page 20
How does it matter if I know not the road
And uncertain seem the future, hidden from me? But the road will turn into a journeying faith
And lead me on, step by step, degree by degree.
I had picked up for my long arduous quest
Half-words and half-colours, half-images, Idioms that would tell more than what they are
And reveal meanings through pages and pages.
That wondrous moment had come in half-sleep,
The moment for us in life to inseparably meet;
I had crossed the wearying distances of sight,
At the end of sight a strange half-sight to greet.
Brooding mountains rise above calm summits
As though a sudden sky became a massive blue, — As though fadeless tireless winging of the birds
Itself into the winging of a flame turned anew.
Now I live alone, remembering you in trance,
And in it a mystic monologue constantly I hear;
I know in it I shall meet you again, and again:
A half-seer surely shall see the sun-seeing seer.
05/07/98 9:58 AM
Page 21
I had given you a promise
To meet you at the moon-gate;
Faithfully I kept the word
Till it became pretty late.
Even the slow-drifting dream
Unwaitingly took its leave;
That you wouldn't be there
Least did the moon believe.
You had told me earlier
You would wait and take me To the garden by the stream
In love yours to make me.
But then in the meanwhile
Perhaps something happened;
Only a pale phantom I saw,
As if by fear dampened.
A scarlet shadow floated
On a scarlet stream of time, One of the horrid past
Had committed the crime.
In guise of love he came
As if to kiss your feet;
But in your helpless cry
Admitted self-defeat.
Page 22
An ashen spirit laughed
Where I was to wait;
But how can love be lost,
It asked, at the moon-gate?
Rejoice in a garden where
You see no defeated things;
Yet a round moon is there,
There another gate swings.
05/07/98 3:45 PM
Page 23
What can the poor ball do? —
It's an old man's kick. What can the old man do? —
In his hand an old stick.
With the old stick he walks
To meet the God of Death;
Will the kind God in return
Give him faultless breath?
05/07/98 5:45 PM
Page 24
Freedom is wide as a sky,
True as the pilgrim-heart;
In it is born the high will,
In it the glad life's art.
And if one is on the path
To God, to great Reality, Left is no more a choice, —
From desire one is free.
For all are one substance,
Call it pebble, rock, star;
Sight too then vanishes,
And so do the near and far.
Rains-rainbows have gone,
And there no bell rings;
Nor are there seven tunes
Given to these seven things.
The inner spirit dwells
In loneliness of its peace;
Streams, waterfalls, the past
Seaward rush there to cease.
05/07/98 10:10PM
Page 25
This is the great difference
Between dream and dream, Between the seeking word
And the song of the stream:
Dream growing in sleep,
Which is an ancient cry;
Dream that comes to sleep,
A sight to the seeing eye.
O to take birth again,
O to enflower life's spring! Help hope to be happy,
The sky to wing and wing!
A dream full of peace,
A dream born of fresh dew:
It casts no chill shadow,
It takes hue on blazing hue.
One speaks of silence,
The other comes from it, — Voice of a beating heart
Calm of a flaming spirit.
06/07/98 4:56 PM
Page 26
A breeze of happiness blows over my soul,
Orange-hued dew-wet from vineyards of peace, It carries the music of its gold and green,
The songs of birds and the bright fruits of trees.
Streams flow in the honey of its sweetness,
A vibrant light courses through cell and cell;
My whole being is jubilant, as if a prayer
To the infinite was set ablaze in it to dwell.
What can I say of the intimate touch of this air,
Exuberance that makes the heart leap to the moon? O the love that is the foundation of deathless life,
Spontaneous and true, and splendid like the noon!
There is the secret magic which has disclosed
The wonder that the whole creation is a Flame, — A flame that grows in its own self to be flames,
Everywhere in the awareness a marvellous name.
07/07/98 2:12PM
Page 27
Who mothered your joy,
In what flame of birth? Did it burn in the sky,
Or in the winter hearth?
Or was it a star
Who felt it all right To step into birth
And win more light?
07/07/98 4:10PM
Page 28
"How do you worship god?"
Once I asked a rich man. "A sovereign each day
That I bring in my big van."
I looked at a village boy,
And with a running nose;
But in his folded hands
He brought a big red rose.
07/07/98 5:10PM
Page 29
I may go daily to a temple
Or at eve meditate by a lake;
Yet in the bazaar of wants
Sorrowing purchases I make.
Life full of anguish and pain,
Life held by death, — but why? And night after night the stars
Suffer darkly their fate in the sky?
O the same usual law of life
That only shuts god from man! In buzz and hurry of the world
Happier things fall out of the plan.
I may think of love and song
And of the sleepless fire, Or of the dream that awakes
To the breath of the higher.
But then wisdom matters little
And my gains last not a day;
So I must wait, or walk and walk
The dull and long cheerless way.
Kindle the flame in the heart,
A living gold, say the sages, — A calm bright flame of longing
Ageless through all the ages.
What indeed is most needed
Is a response true and pure, A blemishless sincerity
As the merit of life to endure.
08/07/98 9:10 AM
Page 30
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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