Away from India India stays within me
I bear the cargo of Indian days within me
what does my being require that India harbors?
whose is the bansuri India plays within me?
when nothing's lucid it's time for silence's answer
no sun of knowledge disperses the haze within me
the ancient forests long gone olden wreaths unravel
I grasp a fiber of pearl-bestrung praise within me
proficient music is all I desire to weave now
the cloth of loving discordantly frays within me
in myriad vespers I sought to enjoy your nearness
what wayward distance nocturnally strays within me?
Beijing late morning a tiny caged bird trills sweetly
such strange captivity endlessly sways within me
you pull me close I clasp paradoxical vectors
our time of union requires much space within me
what transient dream would I share with counterfeit sweethearts?
surreal desires should veil their ways within me
our heat of summer gives way to your storm's invention
creative cloudbursts encourage your craze within me
on foreign turf a bird plummets dead in one version
juries deliberate over the case within me
the chance of glimpsing her beauty arrives too softly
in twilight hours who'll ponder her face within me?
I flew to India thinking to fetch bright baubles
it's me she gathered up scattering rays within me
now Anjanaya is black yet anon he's orange
in any color encourage his grace within me
when Raphael vaguely limned his trip I implored him
to find in Hindustan what may amaze within me
in Beijing
notes
bansuri: bamboo flute
a bird plummets dead: a songbird, separated from its beloved (in a forest of India) had been placed in a cage and taken to a far-off land. Through a messenger (through example), it learned that the way to freedom involves a dramatic act of playing dead. See the tale somewhere in Book 1 of Rumi's Mathnawi.
Anjanaya (Skt., lit. "son of Anjana") -- an epithet for the important diety and mythological figure Hanuman, who may be variously understood to be both a chief devotee of Lord Rama, and also to be (ultimately) an active form of Shiva. His temples are among the most ubiquitous throughout India. He is generally associated with the color orange; but in Bangalore, I enjoyed visiting one Anjanaya mandir [Hanuman temple] with his quite regal and ponderous image carved in black stone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi David
very memorable poems.
but just a minor note regarding the name Vinayaka which belongs to Ganesha the son of Shiva.
Lord of created categories because here was a God who was created through gross matter, and thus over turning the belief that matter is not divine, in fact if a God so powerful could be created purely through matter made him unique as the Son of Shiva.
In one of the interesting Hindu mythologies, the Godesses Creates a God, a very powerful god from her own materiality, 'sweat and mud'.
He turns out to be Ganesha.
This mystery is celebrated throughout the continent as far as Bali and Japan
That is IF a God could be thus created, what is the reality of other Gods?
Like Christ he was born from a virgin
In many of the hymns the Poet experience Ganesha as the raw breaking intelligence.
Where ever this insight is found breaking into the open, there Ganesha is caught in sight.
It reconnects one to the clay and sweat, to earth...to the raw germinal powers that interweaves all life.
" Gana" means material category..this is the fundamental insight present in all knowing and assimilation. Everything that we perceive through our senses or grasp through our mind can be expressed in terms of of kind, of category.
The principles underling all such categories lies the instinctive "intelligent principle"
"Shesha" is when the categories are taken away , or what remains when the categories are taken away, then only raw and beautiful intelligence shines which is prior to any activity..whether scientific, theoretical, artistic,etc.
Gana-Pati is the lord of this raw instinctive Intelligence (animal =instinctive)...it is creative when it is free from any conceptual construct..thus -Gana pati "The lord of intelligence" -the Sweat and mud) as the civilizing power it lords over speech, thought, writing and thinking and all science..
As the lord - He is the Self ( atman) of that intelligence which is present in all things scientific, artistic, , imaginative..
In the Indian mythology he is evoked as someone who free's one from obstacles, frees one from false conditioning and all of which obstructs, hinders, prevents the free createx or the creativity that underlies all Life, animal or human, It is also said that encounter with Ganesha is a sort of recognition and via recognition release of this primordial intelligence, release as clearing, not the masculine gushing forth, , but release as clearing away of obstacles, delusions; Like the way Elephants clear the forests; a freeing or opening space for the appearance, a clearing which belongs to the 'essence' of all categories by which all thinking, speaking and writing is empowered...thus he is invoked before the beginning of any serious work.
One can see an animal in ganesha Or ( Gana & shesha= what ever is left when all categories ( conceptual constructs ) are dissolved.) In spiritual insight it is 'it' itself which comes to the fore.
Post a Comment