Book Four:
Gyrating Hawks &
Sinking Roads (1996)
Foreword
I am happy to
write these lines on D. C. Chambial’s poetry and his distinctive contribution
in the area of Indian poetry in English. He is an established poet from the
Kangra valley in Himachal Pradesh.
Dr. Chambial has
published extensively, and his poems embody significant themes and motive. Usually,
some idea strikes him, rather takes hold of him, and his poetic imagination is
astir. As he admits to the present writer: “Some word or idea/spectacle strikes
the mind and starts the imagination on a poetic spree.” He renders the experience of observation into
a creative piece that lilts and lilts. ‘Two Light Cups’ thus presents a
familiar scene in a vivid, artistic way:
Tiffins in
hands,
move out
satisfied
to battle with
indifferent
minds.
Similarly, the
poem, ‘Waiting Moments,’ expresses in a poetic manner a very common-place
experience – what one feels during and after waiting for someone dear:
Time
passed in
waiting
for someone dear
appears
stretched
to eternity.
When that
eternity comes
it dissolves
like icicles in
soft summer warmth.
We pray it
to stand still
sandwiched
between love and
bliss.
Mr. Chambial is
natural singer, an impressive bard of Himachal Pradesh. He chooses day-to-day
phenomena, natural objects, ideas for his writing poetry. It is the poetry of
intense ideas and deeply experienced emotions. He shows sure signs of maturity,
consistent development in his art and craft and enlargement of his visions. He
tries to discover the reality of life by concentrating on mystic themes or
asking frequently a basic question: what is life?
The present
environment of rampant corruption and injustice in society disturbs and pains
him. Therefore, like PCK Prem, Hetty Prim and K.C. Sharma, he candidly exposes
the prevalent corruption in unequivocal terms for example in poems like ‘The
Tempest,’ ‘Mystery,’ ‘Without Qualms of Conscience,’ ‘Bone Debris,’ ‘Dance of
Death’ and ‘Longing in Void.’ The poet often alludes to the harmony and
sanctity of life, and finely holds up to ridicule what disturbs or vitiates it,
what is not wise or good.
Dr. Chambial is,
indeed, a very perceptive writer, a creative literary artist of immense promise
and potential, free from literary jargons, rugged phrases, unnecessary
allusions and burdensome and jejune images. His is the poetry of life with an
inherent, incessant urge to unfold the ultimate truth. He builds elements of
irony, observation and clear description into an organic whole. Poems are
simple, short yet often characterized by pace, passion and clarity.
I am confident
that the present anthology entitled Gyrating
Hawks and Sinking Roads will be greatly liked by the readers. They will
find in it considerable entertainment and instruction. The incorporation of
topical themes which have eternal significance, too, commends these lyrics to
one and all.
I congratulate
Chambial on this excellent literary venture and wish him still greater success
and glory in years to come and ask him to keep it up to remind him of Robert
Browning’s advice:
Grow old along
with me,
The best is yet
to be.
Dr.
Atma Ram
Former
Education Adviser
to
the Govt. of Himachal Pradesh
&
Director of Education (H.P.)
1. THE
GOLDEN RULE
Una –
intelligent
octopus ever out
to
capture fittest
victim.
Body full of
lava
struggles to
erupt
runs amuck to
calm fire.
Desire at the fount
of Eros. Eyes
ogle,
wink and stare
like the green
snake in
‘Christabel’.
Once in grip
opens layers
petals of lovely
rose.
Makes the victim
plunge down to
the bottom
tasting of
manna-dew.
The moment one
surfaces
not one’s true
self
spectrum of hues.
Blood, tears,
joys, sorrows
all blend
together. One
left simple,
stolid stone.
In moments of
quakes
springs upon
one yields to
fathom seas deep.
In between the
moments
a sun burns,
dies moment
by moment to
bud.
In fission,
fusion survive the fatal strokes
no other rule to
live by.
2.
SINKING
CROSS ROADS
Want to laugh
and cajole
but pools of
blood in front of door
cut deep into
heart and find a tendon
that has become
contumelious.
One hand severes
the other,
tears of joy
turn
into tears of
sorrow
with a single
burst of bullets
and compel to
think
about man’s
sagacity,
about
Chandrasekhar limit to swallow
this ball into
black hole.
Love and
compassion transpire.
Better to vanish
With a cross on
shoulders
on sinking
cross-roads
than to live
now.
3.
FLAMING
CANDLE
The world so
good, so vast,
so fair, so
sweet
that to taste
at every fount,
at every flower,
at every vine
I long to tread
across the limits
of time and
space
to listen the
music
of ebb and tide
in every heart.
I sit and play with
grains of sand
at the shore,
stare in stupor
at the swinging
swells
striking against
the cliffs.
Drop by drop I
melt
like a flaming
candle
into the
unfathomed deeps.
4.
THE
BEAUTEOUS WORLD
A woman stands
waist deep
In a pool of
water,
Dips her brush in
it:
Brushes teeth,
spits into it,
Cleanses mouth
and smiles
At the morning
sun.
Two white cranes
On the bank move
with majesty.
The world is not
Without beauty.
A diamond bright
Sits in the
heart of coal.
Needs an eagle
eye
To sift the
diamond
From the coal.
Like gypsies we
move about,
The train of
time, asleep,
From summer to
south
And wade through
the bog
Of battered
selves oblivious
About the moor
full of flowers.
5.
NIGHT
CAN’T BE LONG
Let’s make hay
while the sun
Shines and shake
hands with Jains,
Climb the hill
of roguery.
Laws and ethos
blown away
With the wind
from murky
Mounts. Lungs
crave for air fresh.
It tells like a
bright
Painting about
the filth.
Cancerous polity
blooms.
This land needs
select surgeons
To operate upon
the sore,
Clear the body
from woe.
Night can’t be
long,
Dawn peeps from
the eastern hill
Swan peace to
knock the sill.
6.
TWO
LIGHT CUPS
At midday
one eagerly
awaits,
silently signals
on arrival.
Both,
automatically,
like robots,
take tiffins out
of cup-boards,
mechanically
move
towards the
canteen.
“Two light
cups.”
Make for the
table,
tiffins
strip-teased,
dainties shared
(munch the dry
Cold chapattis
With bulged
cheeks),
Canteen din,
the background
music.
By the time
tea on table,
are through with
lunch.
Hurriedly gulp
tea;
pay for it.
A look at watch:
“It’s time, it’s
time
For the bell.”
Tiffins in
hands,
move out
satisfied
to battle with
indifferent
minds.
7.
RAINBOW
Like a dream
borne on breeze
walks on toes
from dark corridors,
spreads before
eyes a gala
of colours to
feast dun nerves
after the drab
day’s weariness.
The seven
colours
one beside the
other.
Who dabbled in
crayon
with hues
painted bright
on the canvas of
azure sky,
compels the
heart to pine and fly?
Before conscious
and stretch fingers
across wide
expanse between
the earth and
heaven to hold
the spectrum in
the hollow of palm
someone already
gathered in his bag.
The joy of
epiphany
not so intense
as the pain of
loss
after one has
touched
the lips of lily
buds,
sees them wilt
on finger-tips.
8.
CONFESSIONS
Always been a
dry cork
Though spring
budded at sixteen.
Loved. Loved at
eighteen.
Loved through
twenties.
Now a dry cork.
Wana love
And turn the
back,
That is the way
of the world.
Death no more
frightens
Nor do the
prickly cares.
Ultra-modern
mentors
Set examples to
toll the knell
At the altar of
Mammon,
Care a fig for
men and morals;
Indebted to
these caring captains’
Brain-babies:
hawalas & scams.
Hail! Hail! On
the safest bark skim
For they also
love who rape and kill.
To love thy
neighbour’s sin;
Man – a
metamorphosed vermin!
Still a dry
cork!
9.
DEATH
ON ROAD
A battered body
lay
on the black
road
after a head-on
collision.
A scooter and
truck.
it lay there
freed from
the pangs of
life. It lay
there in the
warm embrace
of cold death.
Unaware
it lay there
about the
fancy of his
waiting
wife and waiting
little
son and
daughter.
They still wait
for him
unaware of the
fatal
stroke of fate.
How will they
’brace this bolt?
How will they
face this cold?
How they, young and
old?
For whom the sun
has set
at noon, those
whom
Harper has left
so soon!
10. WITHOUT THE
QUALMS OF CONSCIENCE
A cunning cat
enters
a kitchen to eat
the cream of
milk. A buffet
of intractable
wind of fate
leaves it in a
cage.
With bulls and
wolves
in veins the
train whistles,
irate at the
unbent
signal. Bearded
goat
Crops the wild
flowers with
an eye on the
other
side of the
bush. Our honest
polity devoid of
morals and
ethics:
horses traded;
women
burnt, raped;
children sold;
elders
neglected,
abused. We feel
safe
with whisky in
pegs,
legs in plates
and become
blind to
everything else
even our nudity
an join the
crowd like day
melting into
night.
11. THE TEMPEST
We are the
denizens
of such an age
which breeds
corruption like
flies.
Those entrusted
with
the task to give
a just
and ethical
rule, lead
the vice and
corruption
to guillotine;
feed them
instead.
Virtue crouches
in a corner
for sheer fear
of being
butchered. The
foxes rule
the roost,
beauty, truth and
goodness face
the law.
Ugliness,
falsehood,
Wickedness enjoy
treat.
The land, once
the cradle
of virtue and
ethics
weeps and bleeds
like a cancerous
sore.
The sun has set,
the light
is gone. Now
carelessly
we follow the
fate
of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
The ship tosses
on waves,
the shore afar;
none hears
the cry. A
tempest staves in.
12. RUBBLE OF THICK
NIGHT
Sunken,
emaciated faces
in peak years of
life
siphoned out to
the last traces.
The mighty waves
in monsoon
of somnolent
rivulet
debunk banks
like Hoons.
Tired of
day-long drab
long to lie in
lap of nature,
drained of
blood. Night does grab
by the neck,
presses hard,
veins burst with
pressure;
blood bedaubs
soil, stubble, sky barred.
Think of the
war, cozy dawn
buried in the
rubble of thick night
that ripped many
an innocent fawn.
13. BIRTH OF A
SCHIZOPHRENIC
In broad day
light
a hysterical
laugh;
prostrates on
ground
at a bus stand;
robs – sodden,
rotten rags
full of lice,
fleas and bugs;
picks them up
like pearls from
sea bed,
hews a hope to
see
another planet
in sky.
Stands upright,
unrobes;
Flies and lusty
eyes swarm
To her smeared
body,
Bulging moons
and thin thighs.
A pimple. When
the moon
fails to balm
the wound
sun-rays prick
the marrow,
a schizophrenic
is born.
14. LIFE’S TRUTH
I briskly
bubbled on road
and thought that
life –
all youth and
joy. Musing
in my thoughts I
encountered old
couple:
sagged skin,
bent backs, diligently
dragging
themselves
for an evening
walk.
I stirred from
my stupor:
Stood face to
face with
the eternal
truth. The year
marching into
grave.
I looked at
myself,
A sun at the
horizon –
weary wait at
the door.
15. LONGING IN VOID
A bundle,
held fast with
nylon ropes,
of flesh and
bones
with voluptuous
muscles
gapes wide
at the atrocity
of human
sagacity,
floats on the
stagnant water.
Crowded humanity
shrieks and
curses awesome
spectacle from a
bridge.
Sunk into bog of
human
Hypocrisy lost
in the jungle
of megalomania.
Horri’d eyes
turned to stones
have fossilized
images
that raped and
ravaged
and crushed the
flower full
of fragrance to appease devil
in Cyclopean
cave.
In this jungle
full
of wolves and
cacti
how can we long
for
some sweet music
and
soothing balm to
truss up
the severed and
bleeding heart?
16. VULTURES IN SKY
Vultures hover
in the sky
to catch a glance
of cadavers
scattered on the
sands of time.
Time flows like
gravid
river silently
down
to the shores of
ocean.
Ocean vast and
deep
beyond the reach
lies quiet
ever embracing
mercy.
Mercy that all
crave to fly
past the gravity
of earth
and boundless
space for peace.
Peace eternal
within
soul but with
vultures conspire
to vitiate and
rape.
Rape men and
morals
for momentary
gains. Eat
the fruit: rise
or fall.
17. A SUMMERSCAPE
Sun rains down
fire.
Sands and stones
afire.
Needles prick
neurons.
Birds and beasts
Look at sky.
Tongues
Droop from
mouths dry.
Cows, sheep and
goats
In desperation
low-n-bleat
To make them
heard to Him.
The skeletal
heap
Rises
astoundingly –
Treat for crows
and vultures.
Earth cracks
Lepers’ skin.
The wounds
Gape in
helplessness.
Sun-singed taps
grin,
Empty buckets,
Withered faces.
Augustya has drunk
The waters
(thirsty,
Perhaps, since
eternity).
Each awaits turn
At sacrificial
fire
Like a lamb.
18. SHORES OF BLISS
Sit upright
in serene
silence
of mellowed meditation.
A ray of light
shoots like an
arrow
from the core of
the Sun
and melts into
mind:
no wound, no
bruise,
no bleeding but
burns with
wondrous bright.
Nacre engulfs
all
within its folds
that pulsate
in the heart of
every atom.
Self lost in
selves
longs to be with
Self
on the shores of
bliss
and pines for
vanishing
like light in
black hole.
19. WAIT FOR AN
UNKNOWN GUEST
Cawing of crow
atop a tree
blossoms the
heart of a crony
who plods her
way
out of her door
to greet the
guest,
chants the names
from her rosary.
Each time she
tells a bead,
ushers crow to
fly away.
Green hopes turn
yellow
through the
flint of tears.
The silent self
soars
with unknown
guest to South:
birdless cage
left to feed
the fire and
enjoin the dust.
20. FREUD’S HORIZON
Night walks,
snakes
writhe, horses
run wild
like whales in
sea.
Infinite stars
born and die
in the womb of
sky.
Horses long
to gallop
through the fair
daisies, pansies
and lilies.
Dare not throw
pebbles into
serene lake
on Freud’s
horizon.
21. DON’T SINGE
Don’t singe
with the heat
borrowed from
sun.
Don’t wet
with the water
borrowed from
clouds.
Don’t placate
with the manna
borrowed from
heaven.
Don’t blow up
with the fury
borrowed from
the whirlwind.
Don’t make swoon
with the juice
borrowed from
mandrake.
Don’t rock
with the lilt
borrowed form
the waves.
Make one swing
with the song
borrowed from
the birds.
When Orpheus sat
with his lute
on the bank.
Come closer,
touch
the nipples of
buds,
press cherries
against palate.
22. A NUDE
A nude
on her knees;
a pink flower
in milk-white
fingers
raised upwards.
Looks
at a winged
horse
flying in
abysmal deeps
of azure skies.
Thinks of
divine seed
in fertile mind.
Clouds thunder,
lightning
blazes,
blizzard
ravages,
bends and
lashes,
plucks and
mutilates
virgin valleys.
Will Helen
spring forth
like a bud?
(written after
seeing a painting at a friend’s house)
23. DARK DAWN
Morning, instead
of being cool,
clear, calm,
caressing, is dark.
Smogged.
Lightning sends spears
through sky.
Thunders rocks rocky mansions.
Enraged storm
cries, roars,
furiously blows,
bends and uproots
idée fixe rooted deep in mind.
Past lull, it
rains, sleets, blows,
thunders,
flashes, groans.
All hopes of
opulence hung
on apexes and
golden ears fall down.
Blood floods the
soil,
washes away
pearly hopes,
diamond
aspirations
to mingle with
ashes –
ashes of body,
mind and soul.
24. DREAMS
When time and
again
you remind me
about time;
there’s a hard
hammer fall.
Falls on my
consciousness,
and needles
prick sore heart,
I get desperate.
Desperate to
undo obsession
I cut asunder
all the chains
held fast by
conscious time.
Buried my watch
deep, deep
under the debris
of time; not
to let it prowl
and intimidate.
25. THE CASUALITY
As I sit in
cellar bolting door,
I feel severed
from the world
like a shuttle
lost in space.
When I come out of cocoon,
begin to thaw
and go
down into the
thick
crowd with blood
and bones
meticulously
mixed,
aurorean light
does the dark night.
Heart, the sole
casualty,
palpitates,
bleats and bleeds on
the table for an
autopsy.
26. A FRIENDLY GUEST
A guest smites
unannounced,
minuses
miseries, caresses wounds
and escorts on
eternal voyage.
Strip-teases,
humbles many.
True judge. With
a blink takes
Away the sun,
leaves behind:
a bag of ashes
hung from a peg
–
green memories.
27. ENIGMA
Visibly
invisible,
Invisibly
visible,
Eternal.
Enigma. All
attempts to bridge
Gap go down the
drain;
Spurns Physics’
long arms.
Metaphysics
defies laws,
knowledge; yet
law and
knowledge present
In bubble, sand
grain,
fire-tongue;
highest and lowest;
fills void, life, death and all.
28. STINGING WORDS
Day smogged,
rain
plays dulcet
music,
water drops on
wires mimic
metropolitan
traffic.
Din settles.
Hills and trees
don fog. Myna
flutters wings
in the hollow of
a tree,
dreadful serpent
hisses.
Rain drops carry
cargoes
on electric
wires; words
sing in mind and
struggle
to be free from
the prison.
29. CANKER
With soft words
of messiahs
Blood trickles
down
From pendent
fingers.
No songs can
catch ears
That slept late
at night
After a hearty
cocktail.
Pricking
thoughts grow
Taller and
taller to pierce
The heart of
sky;
Choke lungs
filled with
Smoke of odium
engendered
By the lamps of
hate.
Canker sips
nectar and drills
A hole in heart.
Can’t they live
With love than
spread bad blood.
30. TRANSFORMATION
When I saw her
first,
She was a little
tulip
Bud. When I met
her, she
Was hard as nut
and full of
Life as a mango
ripe
Hanging from the
branches.
She wore burden
Of a mountain
great. Now,
A rut uneven and
Full of ditches
looking
At the horizon
In the evening
sun waiting
For some silver
lining
Budding forth
from the bright
Silence of
divine dark.
31. THE THIRD MAN
Who is the third
man
besides
you and me?
He always
accompanies us
without fuss.
He warns us
as we stray
on our way.
A ray of hope
to the tired
soul
from the distant
goal.
His shadow
always leads us
on
the cobbled
stones.
It winds through
hills, woods and
snow,
makes us grow.
Your very self
in dark I see:
tat tvam asi!
32. SINGING BLOSSOMS
Varied-hued
blossoms bloom bright
In the darkness
of the night
And fall down in
the basket
Like the ones
falling in
A tornado in
March
And fill the air
with fragrance.
They come down
from Elysian
Heights
continuous, one behind
The other in
red-hot haste,
Imagination and
fade away like cinders
In rain when
left unpicked, insecure, open.
33. SECOND SELF
Somewhere
far off in
ethereal sphere
within the bony
walls
words caterwaul
like the boiling
water
in a bid
to come out
as welcome
guests
on the papers;
at the apogee
they arrange
themselves
like soldiers in
march
and step out
in rhythmic
dance
from the core of
sun;
land in an
epiphany
on the hard
ground of reality
as captives
unable to abscond
–
the second self
is all agog
to shake hand
with you.
34. IN THE MEMORY OF
A DEAD
FRIEND
Smote at the
door
to give
surprise,
a big surprise
in store for me.
The one
who answered the
knock
wasn’t so aghast
to hear his
name, as I.
when, he, with
choking voice,
looking
at the crimson
Sun
at the horizon
and dark
swallowing all,
said:
“He has left for
from where
none ever
returns
to tell about
the voyage.”
Stunned, I gazed
at
the bleeding
Sun, light filtered
through the liquid flint
in search of the
face
lost in void
in the valley of
maya.
35. MYSTERY
A witness
to the falling
three-sixty
leaves,
dark and bright,
from the twelve
branches,
one by one,
smeared with
innocent blood.
Leaves witness
to many a change
Green and
crimson.
History busy
recording fall
of each leaf,
each drop of
blood shed,
frozen cries and
strangled sobs
for the
posterity to ponder,
Leaves continue
to fall;
even the last
leaf
could not escape
the wheel.
The moments thaw
like an
avalanche
melting under
its own weight,
with the tolling
of knell.
Bell tolls,
the new born
stares
at the rut of
wheels
to decipher
the mystery
encoded there.
36. THE PULL
My dear friend
I know, you
thousands of
miles away
sitting by a
river
dream. Dream for
long.
I’ve seen:
my love, your
love,
love together
under the old banyan
where lay buried
deep
in the bowls of
the earth
all dreams,
longings
of Buddha’s
past,
Socrates’
present,
Shaw’s future.
I shuttle
between
blood and bone,
stop to feel
the pull between
you and me.
37. TIANANMIN SQUARE
You’ve
witnessed:
a voice
strangled,
a silent river
strikes against
the banks,
a rain of
bullets,
a ploughing of
warm flesh,
flood of blood.
You’ve borne:
a blizzard of
oppression,
a lightning of
terror,
a flood of
coercion,
a stench of
power,
a frost of
brutality,
a massacre of
bodies and minds.
You’ve been dumb
all the time,
silence has
suckled
many a
revolution.
You wait and
watch
the seeds
planted here,
nourished with
blood,
to bud into a
rich crop of cacti
to prick the tongues
of iron.
(This poem was
written after reading the news of Chinese oppression on the demonstrators for
democracy at Tiananmin Square, China, on June 4, 1989.)
38. ON THE PLAINS OF
DREAMS
Big basket of
wheat chaff—
Golden as the
morning sun
Peeps through a
hole in the clouds.
Sun shines
bright
on the face. Her
a little blush,
he makes.
Sparrows
twitter, koels sing,
cocks crow, cows
moo.
She walks in
dreams.
Invites to help
her basket down
Ignorant about
the world
She unknowingly
bears.
The fatigue, the
tension melt.
Single smile
like one wave
Washes the beach
off the debris.
39. DANCE OF DEATH
Behold them
marching
heads drooping;
pick-axes
and spades on
shoulders.
They march naked
crying for a
piece of bread;
bones rattle,
feet bleed,
bellies sunken.
They stagger,
fall and rise
with weeping brats
about their
breasts,
shadows linger
like the slough
of snake.
Shed blood to
raise heaven
on earth for
masters;
for them:
honking
horns of
holocaust.
Living ghosts,
they walk
drained
every drop of
blood.
They fall dead,
dead they fall:
life heavy as
lead.
Listen the cry
before the fire
blazes and razes
castles down
to ground in its
furious dance of death!
40. SWEET RAPTURE
Crow do not caw.
Someone
awaits my notes
with closed eyes
far away.
Now, how can I
hope
for someone to
press lips
in sweet
rapture?
The heart beats
with love
and is aloft
gyrating in
azure sky.
I know you to be
far away
without any hope
to meet
soon, yet
poised.
At the end of a
filament we spin
on the bank of
fiery seas.
41. WAITING MOMENTS
(for Carla Kraus)
Time washed out
in waiting
for someone dear
appears
stretched to
eternity.
When that
eternity
comes, it
dissolves
like icicles in
soft Summer.
We pray it to
stand still
sandwiched
between love and
bliss till the
world melts.
42. WOUNDED SOUL
While passing by
a log-cabin
in the evening,
I see
her standing
outside her hut,
her eyes on the
snow-capped
peaks. Smoke in
the chimney.
A boozy prattle
inside the hut.
She is out lest
the boozers
begin to pry
into her.
Outside, too,
the ravaging eyes
incise deep into
her heart.
In the
corybantic dance
all taste the
flesh,
as the flesh
recedes
the wolves
steadily slither away,
the yellow moon
is left to sigh:
the cloud of
dismay envelops
the fog of helplessness.
43. MAN IS LOST
India – the land
of Lords:
Lord Rama, Lord
Krishna, Lord Buddha.
They preached
their philosophies
To make a heaven
of this earth,
To redeem man of
his misery,
To blaze the
torch to show the path.
New lords now
tread on this land:
They teach an
ultra-philosophy
Of corruption,
scams and hawalas.
They mind not
action, but fruit:
No fruit is
forbidden for them,
No action low or
base.
Once this land
of the Gita,
Hailed as the
holiest land,
People revered
it.
The perfidious
new lords
Find it their
sacred duty to suck
Like vampires
each drop of her blood.
People died for
their land.
No sacrifice
greater than life:
Martyrs
honoured, held in high esteem.
Men have learnt
to murder and live,
To loot and
ravage money and morals:
Ethics, virtues
silently sob in cells.
The true heirs
of Satan,
Ever conspiring
to molest women,
Sacrifice
children to their deities,
Lit fire at the
altar of Dowry
With the blood
of newly wedded brides.
Man is lost!
Devils thrive like wasps on hives.
44. DANCE IN HARMONY
A black snake
comes dancing.
Wings bud on
sides,
transform into
petals.
The snake is a
blossom
with exotic
beauty.
People with
round caps,
sacred threads
and Crosses
sit together
in mosques,
temples, churches
sans any walls
and fences.
In raptures
enjoy the words
Of Allah,
Bhagwan, and God.
Darkness and
doubt
stay out of
door.
The sun slides
down.
Fresh air blows
in.
Trees dance in
delight.
Blooms laugh in
spree.
Silver smile of
peaks high
soars beyond the
blue sky.
Let’s, let’s all
give it a
welcome warm
and, before our
minds
begin to stink,
dance in harmony
to this call
Supreme!
45. AN ALTAR
The world is an
altar
where all are
garlanded
in proportion to
their
merits and
demerits.
Unconsciously,
perform
rituals and live
victims
of fate until
the unknown
guest knocks at
the door.
46. A WISH
Let us, you and
I,
saunter beyond
the murky lanes
and by-lanes.
I see two yonder
hills
endeavour to
embrace
in winter. The
river grows
jealous:
thunders,
roars in rains.
Man builds
bridges
to solemnize
the marriage of
hills.
Here and the
Great Beyond,
the two hills,
separated
by eighty-four lakh yonis.
Let us, you and
I,
build a bridge
to reach
the great
Beyond,
leave behind the
desert
that surrounds
us.
This is a barren
land
littered with
carcasses.
Vultures gyrate
and roads sink.
Let us, you and
I,
saunter beyond
the murky lanes
and by-lanes
in search of
moon
of tender
lullabies!
47. A CRY OF HEART
Let us come and
sit together
In this fair and
lovely weather;
We’ll look at
the distant mountains fair:
The soft wind
blows, birds glide in air.
Like the heart,
water flows unquiet
Full of passion
and full of might.
Down there where
the Sun sinks
I can see the
earth blinks.
In this pleasant
grove, my love!
My leaves
flutter like a dove.
Come, open and
go through these leaves,
Pacify the pace
of heart that heaves.
Let us come and
sit together
In this fair and
lovely weather.
48. IN SEARCH OF
MYSELF
I saw her first
in Summer
Beside a temple
door; I felt –
I’ve known her
for eons
Walking through
galaxies.
Night in her
skin,
Sun in heart,
Roses on cheeks,
Tulips on lips.
I gaped at the
artistry,
Plunged deep
into the pools
Dark in search
of myself
And a new heaven
pink and green.
49. BONE DEBRIS
Seen sowing
fertility in Spring
Despite staying
sterile during the year,
A little earth
solemnized burial,
A glass of
water, rain for ablutions.
What sweet
spring sprouts
In the dark
forest
Beneath the
mount
Where buds blush
in pink.
Orpheus draws
sad strains from his lyre
At the spectacle
of blood in holy places.
The complacent
politicking goes on
Like dogs over a
heap of debris.
50. TICKLING
SCORPIONS
In the white
chill without
Sun rays mere
stalactites
To freeze the
blood in veins.
Bulbs in soil
look ahead
To the spring
warmth
For new tickling
scorpions.
51. FULL OF
HYACINTHS
You and I
shall forever be
all, all alone
swinging up and
down
the bulging
hills,
the low lying
vales
full of
hyacinths.
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