Book Three:
PERCEPTIONS
(1986)

“Atoms of perception become intelligences, because they see, they know, and therefore they are god.”              - John Keats


FOREWORD

D. C. Chambial, a sensitive and perceptive poet from Himachal Pradesh presents in the present volume of selected poems published in various anthologies and journals of repute in India and the USA. The poems have evolved considerable response from readers and scholars.

He seeks to effect a viable synthesis between the poetic and scientific approaches. The several of his poems embody ideas which are rationally true yet poetically beautiful. While reading the poems one feels the “gravitational pull” to wander into the realms of gold. Mr. Chambial embodies modern sensibility in artistic terms. I’m confident that the PERCEPTIONS will be of great interest and appeal to readers.

Dr. Atma Ram
Principal
Govt PG College, Dharamsala – 176 215 (HP)


1.            THE RIPE TIME

deZ.;sokf/kdkjLrs ek Qys"kq dnkpu A
ek deZQygsrqHkwZekZ rs l³xksΣLRodeZf.kAA [the script is in devanagari script]
         (The Gita II 47)

I have a few acres of land;
With the coming of rains,
Thundering of clouds
I get ready to sow the seeds.

Piercing the heart, furrowing
The land, the plough moves.
The soil is ready, the rain is over.
It’s time; it’s time to sow the seeds.

I have a belle blithe and debonair.
She sings, snorts, laughs,
Weeps and fumbles.
Is it time; is it time to sow the seeds?

I am an honest peasant; believe
In sowing the seeds
Not reaping the harvest.
It is time to sow the seeds…




2.            TO HER LUSCIOUS LAKE

Always I see her, as I sit in my chair
Staring intently into the void
With dark, cool and calm eyes
Full of grave thoughts within her bones
Struggling like lava beneath
The granite rock
Boiling, thundering, flowing violently
Round in a circle
With the hope of finding
Some door to come out.

The gleam from her eyes escapes
The window panes, past tree-sentinels
To rub cheeks against the silvery mounts.
Cherubic lips close, doors locked,
Chin rests on the fore-finger of her hand;
Still, brows un-fatigued blink not.
Graphite hair, the background.
Smile shuns stepping forth her lips.

Dew drops at dawn
On a petal in the lap of a flower.
Azure sky steadily opens the flood-gates.
Grave things ride tranquility.
Her lovely, naïve face entices
One to the luscious lake.
Enjoy the ripples, brave the storms
In the ocean of turbulent norms.*

3.            LET US MARCH
Let us march, today, in search
of that piece of land
where bloom none of our present
religions prawning hatred
of man against man;
swords and bullets run not across
human shores. I know not
what Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism,
Sufism, Sikhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism,
Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, or
Islam’s spiritual bonds strengthen
when man’s love for man turns
into man’s beastly acts of wild horrors.

Let us march, today, hand in hand
concatenating souls like beads
into the thread of the greatest ROSARY,
the ever cherished HUMANISM.
Same blood, bones and flesh,
speak with the same tongue;
same deciphering minds and eyes
make us look alike,
tread the same Earth under the same sky,
breathe the same air, same water drink.
Why not help this Earth
bloom into Heaven
where there is God’s plenty,
plan not to make it stink?
World is too much, the life too small!

Let us march in search of that heaven
where milk of humanity gushes out
and springs of fraternal love flow.
The clean air fills lungs, and live in
mellifluous melody. Where Satan
plays no havoc. No Eve enticed into
Eternal Sin. Where the air reverberates
with Buddha’s sermons, Krishna’s Gita,
Moses’ band defies all the forces of Pharaoh.

Let us march into that land and time
where colour and creed do not impede.
Impede not the free flow of fellow feeling
where breeds not communal cacti.
The Nile, the Volga, the Mississippi
and the Ganga flow together
balming the wounded hearts;
eagle and dove, wolf and lamb
fun and frolic; silently flows
the music  of sonorous streams.
No thunderbolts, no sulphurous flames.
Bright sun shines over the eastern hill
To soothe the sorrow, sore wounds to fill.



4.            LEADING TO THE BRINK

Storms rave in the sky,
mind melts into gelatin.
Fighting fissures ebb and tide
like the waves of a sea wild.
Passionate hands
clutter like bones
at the fall of Sodom
and Gomorrah; time raped
Nineveh, Babylon,
Harappa, Carthagea and Rome.

Who sure?

Silent stream flows
fire to fire
by the frozen hearts.
Foot-falls echo in cranium
and towers crumble down.

Door closed last year
still closed.
Some stasis?
Oblivious about time-foetus
dead past moans.

Fire and water flame and flow
through the same shocked eyes
at the fall of sun.
Night thoughts linger beneath the bones.

Let’s walk heads drooping
through the burning land
where the spiritless men
race in labyrinthine
over the sinking bridges
towards and alley blind.

Stars laugh at the plight of bold
man leading to the brink
of Nineveh and dinosaurs!


5.            THE SERMON

Addressing His first disciples
Gathered to have His message
Ere they part to embark
The doctrine of the Enlightened One.
He sat among them
The most humble, the most sagacious,
The most austere, the most enlightened;
Cast His eyes around,
Convinced of the ardent desire
Of the chosen ones to spread
The light of His vision.
Gems flowed from His tongue:

Go, go away, my choicest ones
Diffusing the mellifluous fragrance
Of the eternal knowledge
Into the land putrefied and stale
To absolve the poor of their sin.
You wander forth: East and West
North and South
For the gain of many,
For the weal of many
Out of compassion and out of love,
For the good and gain, for the redemption of all
Proclaim O Bhikhoos! The doctrine glorious.
Preach a life of holiness, perfection and purity.
Throw to the wind the claim of cast and creed;
Out of love and compassion hug humanity.

Hearing words these, flowed down their cheeks
The innocent tears of joy and happiness.
To their prophet, they wished farewell.
They peeped and saw through
The glistening glory of their deed
Of uplifting the depraved humanity
Serving as the beacon heads,
Went they. They went far and wide
With nectar in their voice
Heedless about the sun and showers
On the thorny ways and dark towers.
They went to sixty sides,
On, on and on they went.

May the truth be yours!
May the light be yours!



6.            THE DIFFERENCE

A cat –
the meekest hen raises her plumes
to scare it away
from her chicken.

A cat
seizes the bowl of milk
from the hands of a baby;
the father drudges in office,
mother at the type-writer
dreams to spend the evening
at some fashionable discotheque
and listen to the music.

The maid-servant
plans with watchman
about her date.

The baby cries,
looks up for help
to get back the bowl;
overpowered by sleep
lies down on the cold floor:
robbed of milk, robbed of love.
Tears roll down the cheeks.


7.            THE ARGOSY

I plunge
into the deep green waters
of the ocean of life
in search of snow-white pearls,
blood-red corals
at the bottom of sea.

The monster entwines
tentacles; the profane fingers
dilated with sinister intent
tighten hold on the neck.

The water is red:
crabs and sharks feed
on flesh and bones.

The light from the rock
signals amidst fog:
the argosy of hopeful cargo
struggles in the dark
beneath the weltering waves
in search of a bright haven.


8.            THE LAPICIDE

Thah! Thah!
Her hammer rises and falls
on the stones breaking
monotony of the hot air.

The sweat drops down,
the rosy cheeks,
the brawny muscles,
desiderates into the air.

A baby on the pebbles
and a passer-by
hear the continuous sound
of the hammer on the stones.
The Sun at vernal height.

Blistering sun and fatigue
enfeeble her not to coruscate
her ever beaming smile.
One is enticed to stare
with wonder and love!

She serves unto Him
and Humanity.
Now and then
the baby cries with hunger:
wipes her sweat from her face
and sits down on a stone
to suckle the child – manna.
Kisses on the forehead
to frighten the fatigue away.
Rises, again, to repeat
the Thah, Thah.
She swims and soars
in her heaven far away
from the thickets
of this weary jungle.


9.            ECHO

Don’t blush nor
entice by kisses for
tonight’s wild, wild dreams.

The foxes and the wolves howl.
The ravines echo the sound
of sedition all around.

Stones, at the bottom of the river,
wail. Corpse moans and groans to be warm
after the mob has melted away.

There will be time enough
to share the nudities
when the foxes and wolves

stop howling; rats shut in holes
lest we would be parted poles
to celebrate consummation.


10.        A POEM

Come,
I’ll be by you.
Sand dunes,
Glaciers and floods
Flow in blood.

Story quite unbelievable!
World sinks into mud
of Lethe.

Boisterous lake is full.
Who is to draw from it?
Sun settles down.
Foxes out for carcass.
Cold wriggles.
Brain parched.
Hands and mind
amputated not severed
for SOS Hands.


11.        TESTIMONY

To satiate inner urge
a super-scientist
in a super-lab
designed a super-man.
Fire life!

Good God!
Super-scylla
ran out
devouring,
devastating.
When none left
recoiled upon father
to satiate the devil
in stomach.

Head on palms,
amazed, agonized,
eyes suffused,
cheeks flooded.
Stupefied lay
helpless
before invention.

Sighs of wind,
tears of rain
called in testimony:
it were YOU!


12.        PENDULUM

Knocking at the door
the echoing beats of
Khabardar! Khabardar!
Drag one
from the domain of dream.
Stone, stubble, tree,
mountain and men melt
into a harmonized mass.

He caresses the midnight
December chilly wind
rubs his feet on the lane,
the cheeks of frosty fog.

Bare-footed shakes the silence
of the sea of black,
whispering night,
yet oscillates like a pendulum
counting the ticks of life
while frost gains weight.
Echoes the shrill sound:
Khabardar! Khabardar!


13.        THE BURNING LAND

There she sits
by the thin, lean riverside,
dangles her legs in the cold water
and suckles her child
her bare, famished breasts.

The hawks and vultures
fly and cry
some intelligible notes
in the sky;
narrow in gyres
to unaccountable pyres.

Down, down and down
they descend and make
the contiguous rock
their berth.

In the West
a light several million times
brighter and hotter
than the one
at Nagasaki and Hiroshima
burns all bones.

With her swollen eyes
she lullabies
her weeping babe
with the softest melodies.

The fire breaks up.
All is turned to naught.
Birds and vessels clatter,
forests and deserts batter.
With lightning and thunder
the black clouds peep from
over the Himalayas.
The wind tries in vain
to balm the wounded hearts.
The frogs croak.
Hawks and vultures
fly away.
Yet she sits and waits …


14.        FOG

The wretched fog
Slowly and steadily lingers on
Over the river, stream,
Vale and dale
To mountain top.

The trees,
Temples and mosques
Stand swallowed.
The Sun
Paragon of truth, beauty and goodness
Also veiled up.
Trembling ox and cow
Terrorized beneath the Eternal tree.
The fog comes riding
A black chariot, driven
By black horses.

Hopes are duped.
Neither warmth nor light,
Rain – a dream!

We stand in winter
Happy by the fire-side
Telling about the abortive tales
Prone to keep the beds warm
Fighting unknown phantoms.


15.        THE FLAME

The flame flickered
and burnt on.
A moth
enamoured of its beauty
came straight
and burnt its wings.
A gush of wind
in vain tried to gain
its abject end
but only passed by.

You and I 
play the flame and moth:
I am crippled by the heat of love.
The glimmer of glow-worms,
a gush of wind
tries in vain
to achieve the foul aim.
I think and for sure construe
It’ll pass by too.


16.        DARKNESS

Without –
the Sun, the Moon
and the stars
try to fight
the darkness of the night.

Within –
I vainly try to light
with electric lamps
of myriad shades
to compose myself.

I see more gloom
in the light of shades
than the darkness
where shadows melt
to emerge
homogeneous.


17.        PERISHING MAN

As I dare peep out
through the window,
eyes reel
at the sight of a whirligig
nourishing
in the lee of pythons …

Headless bodies
march in
a mute procession
leading to a maze …

Terrible cries follow
in an uproar
without human shores.
Numberless snakes
leave holes in Siberia
to live in cities …

Strange! Can’t shut eyes.
Ignorance and greed …
Perishing Man?

18.        THE CRUSTED RIVER

See those lovely marble hands
Intractable to sweep
The litter of clattering bones.

Curly, graphite lock of hair
Licks the crimson cheeks
In the infancy of the day.

Innocence gapes at the anserine
Heap of human absurdities
Swoon before the prowling eyes.

Mechanic hands with
Robot eyes flow over
The crusted river.

An intercourse in annus mirabilis
Delivers spectrum images
Through the loins of pregnant mind.

Fall down broken images
Wounded, limp; gasp and deride
The human absurdities.

19.        STOLID WALLS

We sit
facing the stolid walls
laughing, sobbing,
shedding tears,
listening to the owls
nestled in roof.
Sounds echo and frighten.

We have seen
cats and dogs
growl and caterwaul,
blood bedaubed,
heads frigid.

We simply imitate,
feel proud and civilized
within the stolid walls.
The world without –
Vast and deep!
Vast and deep!


20.        QUAGMIRE

Desperately
I’ve tried and tried
to crawl under the rock
but lay there
bruised and bleeding,
listless
until
I heard the soft
song of the wind.

Serpents hissed,
frogs croaked.
Lingering air
tried to coax
fire to light.

I sank
like a stone
into the quagmire
of time.


21.        THIS THE MAN!

As he dares peep
through the window
at dark clouds
in the evening,
blood spreads
before the pallid eyes.

On the sunken road
after a shower, a cog
listens to the shouts
of Marks and Mao.
The octopus tentacles suck
every drop of blood,
deafens the whirr of machines.
Space shuttles
faithfully obey Einstein.
An arrow of pain
penetrates deep
each nerve of heart and head;
dumbfounded begin to reel
with the reeling Earth
and vision every
historic revolution
of man for man by man.

Listen to the sermons
on the mount, under the tree;
slogans chop the heart,
speeches mock at the starving
crying for left-overs.
This the MAN!


22.        TRUTH

Come, sit by me
that we may talk of love and truth:
truth – that was,
truth – that is.

I’ve been skeptive
about the truth of things:
birth, death;
spring, winter;
a clear bright day.

About storm, clouds,
wind’s fury, lightning
full of fiery shouts;
rivers, pastures,
the game, the hunter;
the child-hearted and those
well versed in vulpine ways.
the songs of birds, 
of the leaves;
the words that buzzed
by the ears and passed by
before I could catch.

Ignorant, helpless!

Life time not enough
to know the stuff –
love and truth.
One must dive
to know the world,
love and truth.

A silent song reverberates
deep in heart:
they in me, I in them.
The cosmos contracted in me.
I dissolved and diffused
to the bounds of cosmos.
Good or bad
in love and truth,
knowing and not knowing:
Brahmoasmi!


23.        SILENCE

In the silence of the seas
I smell a perilous storm
Brewing in the womb of time.

The simmering silence of the night
Foretells the frosty morning
Crawling on the outskirts.

The sobbing silence
Among the leaves of the forest
Harbingers the bloody fire.

The silence of your lips
Reflects storms disastrous
Somewhere in the deeps of mind.

The silence of heart more vexing
Than all seas and storms.
A lesson taught by time.


24.        MAZE OF WORDS

How desperately
I’ve tried and tried
to break the chakravyuha
with shield and sabre
of words.

A fortress
of words and figures
around my transpiring self
from mid-night dreams.
The words envenom my sores.
Figures weave a cocoon
making me a captive
in the dungeon forever.

25.        FIRE TEST
Cover her face, eyes dazzle.
She’s sacrificed young.
She hadn’t yet seen
the rich hues of Spring,
the dewy petals
scarcely ventured out
to the light without
from the orthodox prison.
Frolicking lamb
in the verdures of life,
unaware of the pitfalls, snares
laid by the raven and vultures
for the capture of dove and doe.
She’s snared
Unconscious of the din within.
Sulphurous flames rise
Rise sky high.

Oh! Not a Sita
Undergoing the fire test.

She’d proved, she proves
the innocence
of the heart so fair.
To what other fires
yet to be put before
pronounced guiltless;
faith, freedom, right
restored to her.


26.        RISING IMAGES

Vultures,
Crows, jackals,
Dogs:
Blood and carcass.

Frost.
Frog and mist.

Grenades, guns, bombs:
Explosions and fire.

Cancerous heads
on polio legs,
Blood,
Bones:
Tears.

Water, water, water …


27.        A CROP

Monkeys yesterday.
Today crows
Look for seeds:
Hope and sustenance
Buried deep in the soil.

The time ripe.
It didn’t rain.
Fangs of cold tighten hold.
Stones freeze by the river.
They resolved to raise
A crop of venom
with guns and bullets.

Sat frolicking
With the boomeranging images
Within the precincts of skull
By the ROCK.

Clouds of flood
Flowed in blood;
Manu saved.

Run like the piper of Hamlin
Enraged towards the mountains
With my children of fancy.


28.        CRASH OF WORDS

I followed
What you said.

I do not follow
What you say.

I’ll follow
What you say
Only after the cloud
Of gloom disappears
With the crash of words
From YOUR lips into my bowl
On the battlefield of Mahabharata.


29.        BRAHMOASMI

Whenever you hear me says
Brahmoasmi
You try to scuttle across
The layers of primordial,
Or may be, archetypal thought.
I’m what I’m not.
Something beyond present,
Before past,
Or after future,
Who knows?
May be a conglomeration of
Meditation, thought, soul,
And sensation.

But what am I?
The question haunts, echoes,
Reverberates and booms
In an attempt to find
An answer from eternal springs
Of budding thoughts.

A distant light
Tells in a voiceless voice:
I’m you; you are Me.
Sing the song of eternity –
Brahmoasmi! brahmoasmi!


30.        DELIVERANCE

Morning cool, calm and quiet
Condescending to be compromising.
Blood bath prawns youthful hue
With a promise of transformation
Into the heat of the day, life and love
Promiscuous molecules of ice
Into liquid they readily metamorphosize;
Prismatic dewy jewels
Rise from slumber to fly and dissolve
Into the air above stripping the barriers;
For, stripping is must to come closer
To feel the heat, vibrations riding.
Profuse hymns of birds fly past
Bourns of the age and continents,
Venture to marry the hymns of bards.
Should we come closer or part away?

He comes over, she slips ahead
With full swerve and vigour of plasma.
Should we withdraw from the game?
Perhaps not. May win at the next.
We are not to say, our dead
We fail you, when you are dead
The common father
Of the warring sons and brothers,
Now you are dead – before you died.
Flinch not an inch from heinous acts
As the solid earth rotates.
Should we come closure or part away?

Seen them cherishing meals by a river.
Indolent. The bridge falling down
Under the weight of mechanic men
Racing unmindful of the moments.
Let’s come closure. Skin to skin. Minds
Repel like magnetic poles spin
On anxiety’s wheel weaving cobweb
Of miasms. The acrimonious odium
Dormant in the heart of Otto-atom
Ready to engulf Raman rays with that
Enormous Einsteinian fire.
Yawns there the ferocious dragon.
Discovered lands, scaled new heights
On the earth, in space, for superiority.
Should we come closer or part away?

With the lover of music travelled
Into space along with Ms Bright,
Returned yesterday overwhelmed.
Try to wade through the river of dark
With the light of age old human ken.
The nocturnal octopus twines
Tentacles around its prey,
Sinks to the bottom with blood
Squeezed and bones crushed.
Larceny of rosaceous lips
Incites animal within
Before the penitent moment is born.
Absconding eagle flies from Ajanta
In search of thousand Buddhas
To find both ends of Wanli Chancheng.
Should we come closer or part away?

Stumbles at the door of a vaticinator
In a vain hope of vaticination
Gazing at the VLA video screen
To incarcerate world of Pulsars & Quasars.
The bang of eye follows Big Bang.
Looking into the hole of cosmos
Arjuna’s amaze knows no bounds.
He stops to find the ground
Of his faith moving fast
Blowing the scruples like fag ends.
I stop to find where they had
Had their last supper together.
The dead ash, smoky stones and 
Burnt wood tell the tale of night.
Should we come closer or part away?

What mermaids were they singing
Symphonies on waves? Hair flowing
Down Venusian orbs, spectrum mounts
To touch the ground. Eyes fixed on stars.
A marvelous race on Earth, mind on Mars.
In this land of gods, only gods work,
Minds starve and commit suicide.
Snakes have their peculiar code,
For they can’t brook the dishonor
Of doves and lambs escaping their orbits,
Prefer foxes to oxen and dally
In the venom of their own secretions.
Should we come closer or part away?

Unaware of the Day of Judgement
The stings are always venomous,
The snakes to perish like rats of Hamlin.
Pay a visit to us, O, the Piper!
Tend to your cows and sheep again
The land teems in blood thirsty wolves.
Already spent sleepless nights counting
Stars in the galaxy and the ticks of time.
Gaze at the horizon and
The sky for deliverance.
Should we come closer or part away?




31.        NUDE THEY CAME

Nude they came to the shore
Dancing, singing: what more! What more!
They raised their hands towards the sky
Despite their best they could not pry
Yet tried to know what’s rotten at the core?

They sat down on the grains of sand
With their eyes on the foam waves grand
In a hope to discern a ray of light
In the perilous sea of their plight
Yet tried to figure in mind the curves of land.

The sea waves rose and struck against the bank
Cringing ashore the jettison of the highest rank.
Stood, saw, heard the musical dance of the waves.
Stepped forth to poise the melody from the watery graves.
Through present, the past and future they tried to plank.

Higher and higher grew the waves
With dancing steps to the glistening graves
And, like the Pied Piper’s rats, began to jump
Into the fathomless water over the hump
And perished one by one in the watery graves.


32.        THE CRACKING EARTH

O Lord, show us the light –
Why man bent upon perishing the MAN?
Why perpetrating hunger and starvation?
O Lord, show us the light!

The young dies. Earth cracks day and night.
Why the heart hardened, unable to scan?
O Lord, show us the light -
Why man bent upon perishing the MAN?

O Lord, what made you withdraw
In this game of banging arms?
Where the LOVE? Why the rule of awe?
O Lord, what made you withdraw?

Why the thirst for blood? Why gnaw
The founts of sweetness, light and charms?
O Lord what made you withdraw
In this game of banging arms?


33.        THE RAINBOW FOUNTAIN

The mountain top far away
Touches the blue sky above.
Birds chirp sonorous notes
Amid thick June mango grove.

The snow cool and bright
Beckons from far away;
Leaps up the heart in delight,
With mid-day-mist yearns to fly.

Rising fog steadily swallows
The mountain, the grove, the snow.
The eyes languish for some mellow
Sight that in the field of fancy grows.

Fluffy flakes of clouds embrace trees,
Snow, mountains. People come and go.
Crowds throng, watch slow and slow.
Pine for the rainbow fountain and freeze.


34.        RAPT MOMENTS

To perpetuate life after life
the ocean spread his chest shine with
bright sheen stolen from the Sun
in the lap of Dhauladhar.

The music of the stream beside
transports these rapt moments
of sanguine serenity
to the Hippocrene, the Hybla-bees.

Eyes, prying into the soil for the smell sweet,
espy into the womb of sky.
Strip-teased by the joy of moments mute –
a prey to the hour of solitude.

Rise not smoke!
Let the moments coalesce
And flow into eternity
Boost human fraternity.


35.        PEACE MUTILATED

The isle
Surrounded by water,
Wolves lick the innocent blood.
How sad!

All guns
And bullets’ use
Loss at the face of their
Dazzling eyes await rain.

Peep deep
Into your serene,
Calm, cold eyes dare decipher
Wailing moments unborn.

Ashen hopes wither.
For them star-wars dearer
Than love and life here.
You need think no more!


36.        RAIN OF BLISSFUL TEARS

How lovely! The hills,
Trees, new-born snow, birds,
Kites flying between two worlds –
Infinite, undiscovered and the sinking.

The cloud
Come, thunder,
Run under the Sun –
A rain of blissful tears.

I could not but read in pupils
As she comes prancing like a fawn
Fresh from the pasture,
The agony buried in her mind.

Toss lovely trees to and fro
In rock and roll, tell teed off hearts
How to live together in peace
At the face of sinking earth.

Tell them who is left to rule
After the atom’s fiery gale?
None to sing the madrigal,
None to sing the woeful tale!


37.        THE GASPS OF EARTH

Pendent from the aurorean sky
Over the ridge
Of a milk-white mountain
Legs skyward
Head below …

A stream of milk
Rushes forth from the fingers
And blood floods
In the mind; sheen of light
Dazzles eyes
And feel the gasps of Earth
With throbbing heart.



38.        RENDEZVOUS

The river in spate.
On this bank
belles wash hands
knee-deep in water.

On that stands
An old banyan tree.

The soul fords through
the brown water
from the banyan
to the woman.

A ferocious bull
full passionate,
the reptile strewn cliffy path
top reach
the rendezvous –
brightly lit oasis
in the heart
of  dreary desert.


39.        YELLOW FATE

I must confess:
no car, perhaps,
enough money
to treat you
in some restaurant –
a rendezvous.

To mesmerize,
to shake hands.
My wealth,
my works,
I construe,
may not entice you.

Handles and means
Mean.
I pack my sack of songs
and tread along
the foot-path
in search of a Buddha,
a Socrates
among red, blue and green,
but
yellow is my fate.


40.        ADIEU


What a beautiful bud she was!
Just begun to bloom
In this earthly paradise.

I know her to be fairer
Than one …
The Trojan was fought –
Left the city a carcass.

Even the one for whom
Pururva fought the demons
In the battlefield of welkin
And made his love.

When I saw her first
She had hardly her teens past,
A narcissus among the daffodils.
A red, red rose she was!

I knew her,
And she knew me well.
Full of pearls she was,
Could express her sighs well.

I did not like Browning tell
For you heard my heart’s voiceless voice,
I, to the depth of your eyes, fell;
Fell umpteen times with your honey’d voice.

Your voice dropped to the bottom of my ear
And did lilt me on the cradle of air
And delighted in ‘unheard melodies’ –
Bliss it was. More bliss I did crave.

In her I saw all the beauties of the world.
With her all  the happy kingdoms I ruled.
She an oasis in the heart of a desert,
An enlivening to the blistering heart.
When I saw her last on her ailing bed:
Up the mounts, down the depths,
Beyond the valleys of her tread.

Her eyes shut, her lips mute,
With cock’s crowning she fell dead.
You my pole star, I a solitary ship.
Sure to catch you on your trip.


41.        SUMMER TO SOUTH


Earth and sky,
Day and night,
Living and dead
Vibrate in resonance
To the thunder
Here and above.

Let us not be oblivious of Him
Who steers our ship
From
Summer to South.