Selected Poems Read online

  Arms round my neck, in my lap bounce thump –

  Hurricane of freedom in my heart as you jump.

  Who has taught you, how he does it, I shall never know –

  You’re the one who teaches me to let myself go.

  Palm-tree

  Palm-tree: single-legged giant,

  topping the other trees,

  peering at the firmament –

  It longs to pierce the black cloud-ceiling

  5

  and fly away, away,

  if only it had wings.

  The tree seems to express its wish

  in the tossing of its head:

  its fronds heave and swish –

  10

  It thinks, Maybe my leaves are feathers,

  and noting stops me now

  from rising on their flutter.

  All day the fronds on the windblown tree

  soar and flap and shudder

  15

  as though it thinks it can fly,

  As though it wanders in the skies,

  travelling who knows where,

  wheeling past the stars –

  And then as soon as the wind dies down,

  20

  the fronds subside, subside:

  the mind of the tree returns

  To earth, recalls that earth is its mother:

  and then it likes once more

  its earthly corner.

  The Wakening of Śiva

  My past days bulging with the sap of the turbulence of youth –

  O master of cyclic Time, are you indifferent to them now,

  O tranced ascetic?

  Have they with kimśuk blossoms on gusty Caitra nights

  5

  Blown away, have they floated uncared-for off into infinite sky?

  Have they on rafts of slim white rainless post-monsoon cloud

  Drifted at the whim of arbitrary winds to moor on oblivion

  Through harsh neglect?

  Those days that once so colourfully decked your matted yellow locks

  10

  With white and red and blue and yellow flowers –

  Are they all forgotten?

  In the end they laughingly stole your beggar’s tabor and horn

  And gave you flute and anklets; they filled your drinking-bowl

  With potent distillations of the heavy scents of spring;

  15

  They drowned the dense inertia of your trance

  In an upsurge of sweetness.

  Your trance collapsed then, vanished into the air, whirling with the speed

  Of a dry leaf towards the snowy deserts of the north,

  The songless Himālaya.

  20

  The days transformed your meditation, translated your mantras into scents

  Of flowers borne by the jesting, fancy-free, southern spring-breeze.

  Those mantras gave oleanders, kāñcan, séuti riotous life;

  Those mantras lit the forest with new leaves, sparked its groves

  Into blue-green flame.

  25

  The rushing flood-waters of spring ended your austerities;

  You listened now with rapture to the music of Gangā’s flowing tears

  Tangled in your hair.

  Your wealth revived, its splendour sprang up afresh;

  The wonder in your heart overflowed with its own extravagance.

  30

  You discovered in yourself your proper, generous beauty;

  Joyously you took in your hands the gleaming nectar-cup

  That the world hungers for.

  Wildly you roamed through the woods with your pulsing dances,

  To whose rhythm and tempo I constantly matched my tunes –

  35

  Dancing beside you.

  In my eyes there were dreams of paradise, moonlit by your brow;

  The ever-renewing force of your līlā filled my heart.

  I saw it in smiles, at its point of escape into the heart of beauty;

  I saw it in shyness, at its point of hesitant switching to delight;

  40

  I felt the Flux of Form.

  The brimming vessel of those days, have you since spilt its fullness?

  Have you rubbed out their curlicued pattern, their lip-print

  Of passionate red?

  Were you careless with their tear-swelled torrent of unsung songs,

  45

  Did you let them lie forgotten in broken jars in your courtyard?

  Did your dance of destruction pound them into dust?

  Does the moan of the sterile hot south-west wind signify the death

  Of your former days?

  No, no, they are with you still: you have merely hidden them away

  50

  In the absolute night of your yoga, absorbed them into silence

  To guard them secretly.

  Gangā, meshed in your hair, is at present surreptitious in her flow;

  The shackles of your sleep have blanked the moon on your forehead.

  What deceit there is in your līlā, to disguise you so miserably!

  55 As far as the eye sees, the darkness whispers, ‘They are gone,

  Those days are gone.’

  You are Time’s herdsman: in the evening of an era you sound your horn,

  And past days rush like cattle to the safety of your byre,

  Eager for its calm.

  60

  Across the deserted plains of the universe marsh-fires flicker;

  Cobras of lightning dart their hoods through epoch-ending clouds.

  Separate moments converge into darkness, disconsolate, crushed,

  Their energy sucked into the bonds of your deep unbreathing trance,

  Their motion annihilated.

  65

  But I know that after its long night your trance will reach

  Explosive conclusion when Flux sweeps you into its dance again,

  Into its stream of delight.

  The suppressed days of youth will be freed, to emerge

  As eager promptings of delicious passion; rebellious youth

  70

  Will be a warrior displaying again and again how he can smash

  Fossilized discipline; and I shall prepare his lion-throne,

  His victorious welcome.

  For I am Indra’s messenger: I come to break your penance,

  O Śiva, fearsome ascetic; I am heaven’s conspiracy against you.

  75

  Age after age I come,

  A poet, to your hermitage. I fill my basket with garlands of victory;

  Irrepressible conquest shouts through the plangent rhythms of my verse.

  By the force that drives my feelings, roses open;

  By the impulse of ecstatic discovery that opens new leaves,

  80

  I hurl forth my songs.

  O bark-clad anchorite, I know all your deceptions.

  Your bark is illusory armour: you joyfully anticipate defeat

  At the hands of beauty.

  You may burn up Kāma again and again with your fire,

  85

  But you always restore him to doubly blazing life;

  And because I fill and refill his quiver

  With passion, I am come with my snares of music, a poet,

  Into the lap of earth.

  I know, I know, though you seem aloof, in reality you long

  90

  For the agonized insistent pleas of your beloved to wake you suddenly

  Into new ardour.

  You hold yourself apart, sunk in seemingly impenetrable trance

  Because you want her to weep the fiery tears of separation.

  But the wonderful images of your union with Umā on breaking your trance –

  95

  I see them through all ages, play them on my vīnā in your consort’s rāga,

  For I am a poet.

  Your attendants, life-hating lovers of burning-grounds, do not know me:

  They
cackle with the devilish rancour of the mean in spirit

  When they see what I am.

  100

  But in the months of spring, when the time is auspicious for your nuptials

  And sweet-smiling modesty blooms in Umā’s cheeks,

  Then call your poet to the route of your wedding procession,

  Let him join the seven sages who accompany you with trays

  Of festive garlands.

  105

  Śiva, the eyes of your ghoulish attendants will redden with fury

  When they see your resplendent body dressed in scarlet wedding-robes,

  Bright as the dawn.

  You shall cast off your necklace of skulls, bury it in mādhabī-creepers;

  You shall rub off the ash on your forehead, replace it with pollen.

  110

  Umā will smile buoyantly, glance at me sideways:

  Her smile will inspire my flute, raise songs of the triumph of beauty

  In my poet’s heart.

  Guest

  Lady, you have filled these exile days of mine

  With sweetness, made a foreign traveller your own

  As easily as these unfamiliar stars, quietly,

  Coolly smiling from heaven, have likewise given me

  5

  Welcome. When I stood at this window and stared

  At the southern sky, a message seemed to slide

  Into my soul from the harmony of the stars,

  A solemn music that said, ‘We know you are ours –

  Guest of our light from the day you passed

  10

  From darkness into the world, always our guest.’

  Lady, your kindness is a star, the same solemn tune

  In your glance seems to say, ‘I know you are mine.’

  I do not know your language, but I hear your melody:

  ‘Poet, guest of my love, my guest eternally.’

  In Praise of Trees

  O Tree, life-founder, you heard the sun

  Summon you from the dark womb of earth

  At your life’s first wakening; your height

  Raised from rhythmless rock the first

  5

  Hymn to the light; you brought feeling to harsh,

  Impassive desert.

  Thus, in the sky,

  By mixed magic, blue with green, you flung

  The song of the world’s spirit at heaven

  And the tribe of stars. Facing the unknown,

  10

  You flew with fearless pride the victory

  Banner of the life-force that passes

  Again and again through death’s gateway

  To follow an endless pilgrim-road

  Through time, through changing resting-places,

  15

  In ever new mortal vehicles.

  Earth’s reverie snapped at your noiseless

  Challenge: excitedly she recalled

  Her daring departure from heaven –

  A daughter of God leaving its bright

  20

  Splendour, ashy-pale, dressed in humble

  Ochre-coloured garments, to partake

  Of the joy of heaven fragmented

  Into time and place, to receive it

  More deeply now that she would often

  Pierce it with stabs of grief.

  25

  O valiant

  Child of the earth, you declared a war

  To liberate her from that fortress

  Of desert. The war was incessant –

  You crossed ocean-waves to establish,

  30

  With resolute faith, green seats of power

  On bare, inaccessible islands;

  You bewitched dust, scaled peaks, wrote on stone

  In leafy characters your battle

  Tales; you spread your code over trackless

  Wastes.

  35

  Sky, earth, sea were expressionless

  Once, lacking the festival magic

  Of the seasons. Your branches offered

  Music its first shelter, made the songs

  In which the restless wind – colouring

  40

  With kaleidoscopic melody

  Her invisible body, edging

  Her shawl with prismatic tune – first knew

  Herself. You were first to describe

  On earth’s clay canvas, by absorbing

  45

  Plastic power from the sun, a living

  Image of beauty. You processed light’s

  Hidden wealth to give colour to light.

  When celestial dancing-nymphs shook

  Their bracelets in the clouds, shattering

  50

  Those misty cups to rain down freshening

  Nectar, you filled therewith your vessels

  Of leaf and flower to clothe the earth

  With perpetual youth.

  O profound,

  Silent tree, by restraining valour

  55

  With patience, you revealed creative

  Power in its peaceful form. Thus we come

  To your shade to learn the art of peace,

  To hear the word of silence; weighed down

  With anxiety, we come to rest

  60

  In your tranquil blue-green shade, to take

  Into our souls life rich, life ever

  Juvenescent, life true to earth, life

  Omni-victorious. I am certain

  My thoughts have borne me to your essence –

  65

  Where the same fire as the sun’s ritual

  Fire of creation quietly assumes

  In you cool green form. O sun-drinker,

  The fire with which – by milking hundreds

  Of centuries of days of sunlight –

  70

  You have filled your core, man has received

  As your gift, making him world-mighty,

  Greatly honoured, rival to the gods:

  His shining strength, kindled by your flame,

  Is the wonder of the universe

  75

  As it cuts through daunting obstacles.

  Man, whose life is in you, who is soothed

  By your cool shade, strengthened by your power,

  Adorned by your garland – O tree, friend

  Of man, dazed by your leafy flutesong

  80

  I speak today for him as I make

  This verse-homage,

  As I dedicate this offering

  To you.

  Last Honey

  End of the year, of spring; wind, renouncing the world, leaves

  The empty harvested fields with a farewell call to the bees –

  Come, come; Caitra is going, shedding her leaves;

  Earth spreads out her robe for summer languor beneath the trees;

  5

  But sajne-tresses dangle and mango-blossoms are not all shed,

  And edging the woods ākanda lays its welcoming bed.

  Come, come; in the drought there’ll be nothing of these