Inheritance

To my Teachers, in gratitude and reverence.


Foreword

Preface

Topsy Turvy

To Celebrate Love

Buoying Up

Labour of Love

Sap of Life

Clothing

Uncluttered

Vision and Retrospect

The Prison of Mirrors

Awareness

Lost and Found

Log

Verdure

The Bejeweled Universe

Journey

Festival of Life

The Forest Aflame

Plea to a Communal Rioter

Spring

Cosmic Economy

Tyranny and Liberation

Ode to an Enemy

The Body of Man

Timelessness

Making Love

This and that

Identity

Plumbing

Reshma

Beyond the Prison of Mirrors

Spark

Eclipse

Calcutta Metro

Waters

Matrimony – jewel of union

Rama's Plaint

Crowning glory

Lucky

Homecoming

Storyteller

The poems in this collection breathe a sacred sincerity to reach out and embrace all of life. Their piety is dictated not by the traditionally encased religion, but by a humane and universal sensibility that is devoutly eager every moment to sing paeans to the panorama of life in its wondrous plenitude. Not in any way to be confused with pantheism, this all- encompassing vision of multi-chrome and multivalent life, as manifest in the world, is worshipfully portrayed by Ramaswamy as a holistic experience, everything in it joined by invisible threads of numerous affects and affinities, collective and individual, ancient and modern. It is a symphony, this river of ever-flowing Time - the vista of beauty and human creativity - that these poems celebrate.

In our tragic and travail-torn times, to stay sane is itself quite a strenuous exercise. To have the kind of vision that these poems enshrine is refreshingly and admirably noble. More, it chalks out a spiritual strategy to keep our humanity intact and our inner beings whole. It is humbly insistent on and commemorative of its umbilical chords with times past and generations gone, as it is joyously celebrant of the present and its cornucopia of marvels scattered all over. Ensconced in serenity and supernal calm, these poems invite us all to a concert of abundant and omnipresent melodies. The pictures accompanying the poems are as moving as they are serenely magnificent.

To have a glimpse of the riches that this vision contains would be a very rewarding experience. These poems invite us all to this delight. We, the readers, should be thankful.

I.K.Shukla
Los Angeles
7 Aug. 06

The ‘poems’ in this volume were written in self-expression, flowing from an inner life and world.

“…to join in harmony
the voices gathering through the ages
that speak of timeless truth.”

But I also shared the poems with others, who liked them and urged publication so as to enable wider dissemination.

Many of the poems included here were written in 1997, when I was host to an inner vision and audition, accompanied by a felicity to transcribe and render this in verse. The articulation and transcription was a fulfillment in itself. They document a little of the real, intensive, powerful and all-defining subjectivity experienced by the writer.

“… Re-kindling sensibility, re-joining the psyche
re-integrating personality and community,
re-introducing homage,
re-uniting the family of humanity and all living beings,
respiritualising man, regreening earth, resacralising life.

Renewing civilisation, culture and civics,
rebuilding city and citadel,
discovering metropolitance,
fulfilling sovereignty and governance,
re-establishing dominion of the Lord
over sense and self.”

The poems are very allusive. However, just as there is the very personal context, there is also the wider, universal context. It seemed to me that folk ditties, jokes, epithets, vulgar expressions, profanities and the like, and even everyday words - are mediums for transmission of precious wisdom, like coded messages to future generations, hidden in expressions that are sure to be in common currency, heard by and embedded in the minds of nearly everyone, so that some time someone, somewhere may also reach through to and grasp the inner meaning.

But for that matter, everything in the wide universe around us – can appear exalted, sacred, serendipitous, present specifically to create such a perception, so as to again enable renewal ...

I did consider including in the volume, as ‘Notes’, a personal commentary on the poems, sharing the experiences underlying them, unraveling the allusions, the tales from Indian epics and mythology, and the mischievous play with words and languages, the symbols, expressions and hidden meanings. But on further reflection it seemed that this would only serve to limit readers’ own possible experience. Like with a Zen koan, meanings of riddles arise in one’s own consciousness, are understood in a uniquely personal, self-defining way.

Similarly, while the expression is in English, the underlying experience is fundamentally Indian – Bengali, Hindustani, Tamil, Malayali; Sanskritic, Buddhist, Muslim; brahmin, and folk. English is here sought to be used specifically to express the Indian. Again, while symbols that speak to us are culturally specific, they are also part of the symbolic universe that lies within the collective sub-conscious of humanity at large. Like the friendship of ancient trees, like the overlapping canopies of huge trees in a forest – there is a passage between the mythologies, the cognitive and linguistic universe of different peoples. After all the human family is one.

Hence – a collection of mystic verse. The poems appear here more or less in chronological order.

For their interest, appreciation and encouragement at various times, I must express my sincere thanks to Joy Sen, Revathy Gopal, VS Gopalakrishnan, Sita Venkateswar, Dipali Bhattacharya, Mary Ann Dasgupta, Lou Gelehrter, Ram Ray, Nandita Palchoudhuri, Cdr Arun Prakash Bhattacharya, James Aboud and Amit Chaudhuri. I am sure I forget several more names, so sincere thanks also go to all these un-named friends. Prof P Lal, respected savant, poet, transcreator of epic verse and publisher, considered my poems worthy of publication, and that helped to overcome my own diffident reluctance. This collection owes its publication to Rajashi Mukherjee, my wife, whose repeated requests to get the poems published I consistently disregarded.

Some of the poems appeared in www.chowk.com, www.sulekha.com, and www.poetsindia.com. I am grateful to the editors of these websites for publishing them.

Six weeks ago, I began my web-log - http://cuckooscall.blogspot.com/- and was thus initiated into self-publishing on the internet. I had posted some of my poems in my blog, and this elicited positive response from a few people. That encouraged me to put up my collection of poems on the internet. I am deepy grateful to Mr IK Shukla for contributing a Foreword to this collection.

The publication of this collection is an acknowledgement and a commemoration of the experience of the transforming, loving activity of the Holy Spirit.

Calcutta
7 August 2006

Leap, leap, leap!
Fly!
In a trice,
Like a flash,
A bursting, exploding shooting star
Coursing through the firmament wide,
Disappearing into the vastness far.


Melt, melt, melt!
Blend!
In a blink,
Like a bubble a-boil,
A collapsing, dissolving ripple
In the immense ocean night,
Quietly rising to its heavenly flight.


Photo: "topsy turvy", by KnOxOverSTreet

The sea’s astorm,
The ocean’s still.
And as it rests,
The surface shimmers and trembles,
Ever breaking out
In tiny waves and ripples,
Each one
A life
Only of supplication,
To celebrate love
With the heaven above.

There is an inferno raging within,
A cauldron on the boil.
My whole body seeks
To coil around this vortex
And dissolve into nothingness,
And also explode
Seeking to embrace the cosmos.

A deafening silent scream
That lets loose a thousand melodies
In song, imagination and physical consummation
That inflame my being.
Draw, paint, a frenzied scribble
That finds rest in beauty and peace.

Take pen to paper
And labour through the maze
Of mind and medium,
Limitless past, everflowing present
And everborn future,
To join in harmony
The voices gathering through the ages
That sing of timeless truth.

Just as you tune a musical instrument,
Going through the notes
To get the subtle shades of tone and pitch,
So can you tune this body
Going through the scales of feeling.
The river meanders, for it must
As do one’s emotions.
Cut a furrow to the next channel
And so erect an invisible scaffold
Joining the subliminal nodes
Of springiness and stiffness
Through which can pass
The river of life
And buoy up mind and body
Creating the viscosity
And suppleness of being
To flow into the cup of life.


Image: Self-portrait, quilt art, by Deb Richardson.

Pluck the seed of love of our Lord from your heart
Plant this in the soil of your mind
Nurture this sapling through your life’s work
And when this is grown to a lively tree
Cut a branch and fashion a staff
To be your companion on the path
To our Lord.

Let music play
Let colours flow
Let song and melody
Set every heart atremble
With the beauty of life
That’s wrapped in sorrow
From whose depths
Springs the sap of love
That’s the vital drop of life
In every Being.


Photo: Achinto

Upon my heart
Shall I wear
With humility
The Covenant of Thy Grace

Ignorance, I learnt,
Was the highest wisdom.
For then did I see clearly
Who my friends were,
What to pick and choose,
And what to draw on;
What soils to tend,
And the seeds to sow
From whose grown trees
I wait to build the bridge,
Along which I shall follow
My companion in Grace.

Work with diligence
And rest in the blissful vision
Of meaning.
Thus move forward, and look back
To see: clumsiness, and grace.

Starlight, like remembrance,
Weaving constellations of tales
Floating in immensity.
The human experience a great Milky Way.
Life and the universe,
Mind and material,
One mirroring the other,
In infinite rounds of resonance…
Awaiting the shattering of mere echo and image.


Calligraphy: The name of Prophet Muhammad, in mirror images, by Subail Anwar, Istanbul.

Through your appearance friend, I learnt to recognise myself,
Your inward is in my outward, I am the inward in your outward.
If I am ever right, that is only because of you
And mine the evil that poisons you.
You are only a figment of my imagination,
While I know myself only through your blessing.
My place is at your feet, by your side, and in your embrace
May you be the body through which I realise myself.
Through failure and betrayal, I struggle to uphold your love and compassion,
Disconsolate shame my constant reward.
The world is my mirror, I look and see myself
May I be able to be your’s, and help you to see yourself.
In gratitude for your kindness, through which I am
May I be able to help you know who you are.


Image: from the website The Mirror of Galadriel.

Sensibility and the search begat awakening.
Sensibility lost - and thence the darkness of ignorance
In the black, black night of dispossession
Of the children of the forest.
Awareness - lost. Memory - lost. Knowledge - lost.

The Compassionate One blesses forever the seeker of forgotten knowledge.
Witness and reaper, through aeons of drought and bounty,
Planting seeds on earth and in spirit,
Irrigated through channels dug to the pure waters of life,
Fertilised with nutriment showered like pearldrops, petaldrops,
Guarded against foe and pest by angels and saints,
Ripened by eternal warmth.

Remembrance and reflection reveals a full moon of clear light,
Timeless mind, protector, through forest and conflagration, of purity and innocence,
Aloft a magical white steed coursing eternally through the heavens,
Illumining forever, seeker and sleeper alike.

The Piper, come to reassemble,
Boatman, come to ferry,
The children of the cave
From the shores of plague and deluge
To futures anew.

Creation and life,
Time and the universe,
Gods and their vehicles -
Like the Bo tree, all springing from roots
And in turn returning to source,
Nourishing and renewing Earth and life,
Nurturing Creation.

Image: Enlightenment Scene, Temple painting in Bodhgaya, India, by Marianna Rydvald.

Seeing

Beyond the maze of archaeological and scientific mystery:
Unifying mythology and microbiology.
Reading invisible maps and signposts of endeavours, journeys and migrations,
Lonely, unrelenting,
Through medium, geography and temperament,
Culture and climate,
Of the timeless spirit of quest, reunion, and well-being.

Hearing

The silent semaphore calls and responding notes
Of twilight communication,
Between sect and school, through history and thought.
The gentle songs of children’s sweet-throated homage to heroes departed.

Witness

Battlegrounds of the spirit heaped with the corpses of still-born faith
Piled upon humanity’s heritage of ignorance, forgetting and betrayal.
Understanding prophecies and discerning their fulfilment.
Beholding congresses and outpourings of joint celebration and mutual resolve
In amphitheatres of time, space and consciousness.

Visiting temples:
Museums of creation,
Schools
For the journey to the sacred and the divine.

Observing rituals, exemplars of absolution.
Intuiting astounding designs of trans-historical projects
To cultivate the garden of earth.

Voice

Speech, like thread through a garland of buds
Laid in prayer to the nameless one.

Song

Melody,
Revering the train of silent saints,
Heartening the children:

“Don’t forget little ones, don’t forget to walk with me,
Millennia’s suffering did I turn, for you only.”


Painting: Voyage Beyond Time, by Marianna Rydvald.

Verdure
As the sap of love and devotion
Courses anew
Through the thirsty capillaries
Beneath earth's parched crust
That run through the frozen hearts of men
But in whose depths
Swirl
The cool sweet waters
Of meek humanity.

Food and scripture:

Grain and pulse,
spice and condiment,
sweet and savoury,
herb and hemp,
fibre and flax,
weed and vine,
root and tuber,
fruit and berry,
leaf and flower,
seasons and cycles,
rites and ceremonies,
festivals and offerings,
feasts and fasts,
invocations and well-wishing,
vessels and utensils,
spoons and ladles.

Phoneme and phonetics,
vowel and consonant,
numbers and value,
fantasy and intimacy,
humour and mirth,
pronunciation and articulation,
accent and intonation,
drone and ululation,
name and meaning,
word and association,
vocabulary and syntax,
language and identity.

Work and play,
riddle and joke,
proverb and ditty,
prayer and profanity,
fact and fantasy,
fable and parable,
syllogism and analogy,
simile and metaphor,
sign and symbol,
digit and alphabet,
counting and valuation,
puzzle and clue,
clothing and costume,
masks and make-up,
drama and rehearsals,
concerts and soirees.

Myth and legend,
place and person,
teller and tale,
memory and object,
icon and image,
bow and arrow,
figure and form,
function and involvement,
banyan and pipal,
pose and gesture,
mood and expression.

Society and culture,
race and civilisation,
evolution and ascent,
reward and punishment,
behaviour and biology,
beast and bird,
insect and reptile,
fish and amphibian,
ecology and environment,
ore and mineral,
geology and topography.


Image: Brooch, by Andy Cooperman.

Princely endowment and precocious entitlement, custom and dissension.
Happy possession and strenuous accession.
Marriage and coexistence, fathering and family.
Through travels and wandering, separation and regrouping.
Desire and thirst, lust and pining.

From confusion to discernment, sensual to sensory, aesthetics to beauty, logic to intuition, understanding science and ethics, rationality and emotion, enjoyment and renunciation, economics and public policy, stock and flow, quantification and quality, principle and particular, teaching and learning.

Kingly responsibility and sagacious humility, lighting the pyre and being strung on the rack,
accepting mercy and submitting to grace.
Building morality and psyche, liberating mind's gossamer threads from the dominion of slavish inertia.
From sensitivity to sentience, discovering and transcending,
up ladders of consciousness, from subterranean depths to celestial heights,
through body and mind, with melody and rhythm, and in harmony, strained through pulls of heart.
Shattering the mirror of mere reflection and echo,
through defeat and despair, shame, and stagnation.
From selfish indulgence to selfless immersion,
watching jealously to jealous watching over, torturous happiness to joyous sorrow,
terrifying cowardice to the fearlessness of the meek.
Plunging into the ocean, leaping off the mountain, harnessing gently demons' wrath.
Cleansed by suffering, strengthened by pain, powered by uncompromising service,
never losing faith in the voice of self and friend.
Crossing the waters, and through trial by fire, plunging into the void of nothingness.
Dancing with the buffalo, to its rider’s drumbeat –
titration and suffusion.

Consummation of love and union. Fulfilment of evolution’s contract
to deliver the personality of man in the image of God.
The obsolescence of god, and the birth of Man.
Fullness and truth, companionship and communion, knowledge and memory, awareness and bliss.
Power and wealth, safeguarded by detachment,
From chatter to stillness, quietude, and endless serendipity.
Turning the clock, to move forward, to eternal childhood in the embrace of the Infinite.

Come, friends, children,
Let’s resacralise life
And make it a festival
Of celebration,
Song
And dance,
Colour
and beauty,
Joy
and awe,
Reverence
And homage,
Duty
And responsibility,
Giving
And receiving
Kindness
and consolation,
Sacrifice
and cooperation,
Growing
And raising,
Learning,
And teaching,
Blessing
And being blessed.

Place and pulse. Night.
Deep in this forest of signs, in a clearing,
Beneath a fruit-laden fig tree
Surrounded by the lattice of its aerial roots
Formed like time and earth's trails,
Is laid a lotus blossom: the Forest Queen's blessing.

Gathered here, a strange assembly:
A serpent, black, a mongoose, in two colours,
Both weary,
And a duckling, woebegone.
Having journeyed long and far on their own
And heard the tale of the egg and the chrysalis made of gold,
They made their way, separately, alone,
To this sacred grove
Propelled -- they know not how --
There to await -- they know not what --
But assembled nonetheless
In shared silence and deep obeisance
Before the magic blossom.

The golden egg: laid by the Hen of Sustenance,
A shell-bound realm of astonishing distraction,
From which would break forth
A Rooster of dazzling plumage
To herald the dawn of awakening.
The golden chrysalis: woven by the Worm of Being
Out of the fabric of the universe and sewn with the thread of time,
From which would take wing
A divinely-hued Butterfly
To multiply the Garden of Life.

Suddenly, a ray of the new morn pierces the foliage
And a shaft of gold descends upon this gathering.
Strange transformations then ensue.
A ruby of deepest red appears on the crown of the serpent
As she waits, coiled, beneath the tree, head raised to light.
The mongoose, awash in rays of red and gold, looks at himself
To find a fully gilded coat to protect him from the deepest cold.
And the duckling too gets his due of amazing grace
As his wings spread with majestic ease to reveal a celestial swan.

The light of the new dawn now bathes the grove in flames of gold and red
As the serpent, the mongoose and the swan embrace, rapt in joy.
Bidding farewell to one another, they depart,
To make their way through water, land and sky
To the four corners of the earth
To tell their tale to eternity.

But there's a post-script, or a further twist to this curious tale.
At the very moment of the optical elusion
Two other wanderers reached, separately,
An edge of the forest clearing
And were witness to the whole episode.A
flea-bitten mongrel, a raggedy bag of skin and bone,
And an adolescent youth, lean and gaunt, humbly clad, in tattered garb.
Why were they here, what brought them there -- is not really known.

Stunned, entranced, they watched, boy and dog
In paralysed stupefaction.
Before they knew it the moment was over, the spell was cast.
The serpent, the mongoose and the swan had gone their separate ways
And simply vanished without a trace.
Back to real life, enraptured by it all, bewildered by what they saw,
Joyous beyond words and grieving for having missed some boat
But empowered even by remembrance,
They too dispersed.

Having been companion in witness
To what could possibly never bloom again,
Or even be believed by anybody else,
A bond was formed between boy and dog.
Both had sensed, even if they could not communicate in words,
The import of what they saw, and what life was all about.
Besides, the boy had found one true friend.
And as for the hapless beast, he knew he had found his master at last.

Now whether there were any further witnesses to all this --
Observing, comprehending, communicating --
Any person or animal, bird or bee, insect or tree,
Or any invisible sprite, or a flying unicorn just passing by --
Who would know?
And if there were, would one know?

O Rioter!
Come flay your sword! Behead me!
Thrust your dagger! Pierce my heart!
Plunge your trident! Disembowel me!
And spill my blood upon this land,
so that from every drop shall bloom
a crop of meek humanity,
laden with golden grain,
to feed the hungry in spirit,
a sea of stalks
swaying
in the gentle breeze of eternal love,
trembling
with yearning
for the joyous embrace
of brotherhood, goodwill and mutual celebration.


Photo: Achinto

“Let no one commit the mistake of thinking that Ramrajya means a rule of the Hindus. My Ram is another name for Khuda or God. I want Khuda Raj, which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on Earth.”

Mahatma Gandhi
26 February 1947


When Hari and Ali embrace
The nation is blessed with verdant grace
Rain showers, earth blooms now
When Hari and Ali together plough

Flower and fruit sprout everywhere
Fragrant perfume forever fills the air
When there’s with us the Green Forester
Divine all sprouts and all water

Lake, river, field and garden
Hearts’ stream does awaken
When there’s with us the Green Forester
Divine all sprouts and all water

May Ali and Hari until eternity remain
And all children flourish without fear’s refrain
Gone those days of hatred frightful
With companionship the heart’s full

Union and oneness in every direction
A new age of love and devotion
Mutual quarrels flown away
Foundational unity here to stay

Staff in hand, the Lord’s name we sing
This sacred land must we bring
Companions are with us, the work shall be done
This sacred land must be won

In the name of God, victory to Lord God
There’s no god but one God
Lord of Creation, Preservation and Balance
Service to the people - is the name of godliness

Mothers of life, learning and spirit
Nourish and keep body and mind fit
May justice and compassion spread beyond limit
And upon all visit Ram and Rahim’s spirit

God is great, God the Blooming
For all, forever, may there be well-being
God is great, God the Blooming
For all, forever, may there be well-being.


Photo: Deb Richardson

Gravitational pull,
Keeping moon and earth in perpetual orbit,
Maintaining the tides of life.
This ancient truce between the elements of creation,
A reminder of eternal separation,
As moon split from the face of earth.

Waters of life,
Flowing from mountain to ocean, and back again,
Nourishing settlement and civilisation.
This ancient commerce between the elements of earth
Signalling primeval oneness,
When mountain lay in ocean bosom.

The tyranny of literacy is most acutely felt
When one just can't help but read signs
That for one unread are just so many arbitrarily scattered etchings
Silent, unobtrusive, not screaming words and sentences
And thus activating mind waves and God knows what else --
All from mere circumstance.

For one deprived of the precious endowment of illiteracy
Learning not to read
And to let signs remain silent
Is a first step then on the long journey to finding oneself
And remaining buoyant and tranquil
In the quietude of the eternal void.

Dear friend, enemy,
doubly am I beholden to you:
for it was your ceaseless attack that drove me
to the depths of my being
to find my true self -
responsible inviolable, precious.
But more than that,
it is through trying to find
your most compassionate and protective core
within the mist of your supposed enmity
that I am plunged
grieving, sobbing, breathless,
into intimate love for you
from which I emerge
unvanquishable,
having drunk of the elixir of life.
How then can I but be utterly at your mercy ?
I shall suffer in silence -
not your slings and slander,
which were merely phantasms
of my own creation;
nor for missing your friendship,
for I have been and am one with you;
but this futile loss of precious life
flung cheaply into the bog of sloth
to be compacted and thrown into the flames of purification.
There shall you be, friend, friendless
while I, your enemy, grieve your absence -
for only in the fullness of all
lies my own.


Image: Love Thy Enemy, by Bogdan Migulski.

Between darkness and light
Delusion and truth
Fragments and fullness
Desire and detachment
Envy and empathy
Fear and courage
Anger and mercy
Lust and purity
Pride and modesty
Loneliness and communion
Suffering and bliss
Lies this narrow isthmus
Of faith and patience,
Labour and perseverence,
Humility and renunciation
Compassion and service
Vigilance and watchfulness.

Time hangs heavy,
The seconds and minutes
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
Serving only to indicate
In agonising slowness
The aeon stretching ahead,
As a crushing wave
Of dread
Clouds the mind
And plunges into the gut.

Remembrance
Of similar agonies
Of unbearably burdensome time:
Intricately recalled
Feelings of dread -
Sucked away
Through passing time itself,
Yet visible
Like a particle
Within a bubble
Floating
With other bubbles
In a snaking train of foam
Over the stream of living
Conveying
This speck of life
Through the misty void.

Everything does pass
Dread as well.
Only hold still
And let
Every tick, tock, tick, tock
Cement this still calm,
Into concrete certainty
Blind to doubt and fear.

Look
With open mind
And heart
Within yourself
To find
That time dissolving lode.
Remember the way
And return at will
To this sanctuary
Of eternal refuge.

Let's make love
through looks and smiles
signs and gestures
words and terms
of endearment
and share intimacy
through kind thoughts
speech
and deeds.


Photo: Achinto

Heaven and earth.
God and man.
Spirit and soul.
Day and night.
Sun and stars.
Work and rest.

Creation and being.
Mountain and cave.
Light and sound.
City and heart.
Speech and silence.
Fulfilment and remembrance.

I am the imaginer
the desire for fulfilment
the thrill of joy at beauty
the awe at grand majesty
the impatience with form
the glimpse of perfection.
I am no more
Aesthetics and art
Mate in me.
I am the means
For the fulfilment of the universe.
Through the leap of the spirit in me
Is the spirit of the universe
Leaping to transcend all boundaries
Towards union with all and ever.


Painting: Harmony in Blue and Silver, by James McNeil Whistler.

Heave ho! Heave ho! Heave ho!

Bring the divine nectar - Heave ho!
From the bottomless well - Heave ho!
Look for the spring - Heave ho!
And follow to - Heave ho!
The dark dark cave - Heave ho!
Go far within - Heave ho!
To the deep deep pool - Heave ho!
Now drink your fill - Heave ho!
And quench the thirst - Heave ho!
With the water of life - Heave ho!
Plunge deep, deeper - Heave ho!
And drown yourself - Heave ho!
I am born - Heave ho!
I resurface - Heave ho!
Drunk the divine nectar - Heave ho!
Clad am I in - Heave ho!
This adorning mail - Heave ho!
The light of day - Heave ho!
The breath of life - Heave ho!
The fragrance of dawn - Heave ho!
The chirp of birds - Heave ho!
This body of mine - Heave ho!
Home it is now - Heave ho!
To the timeless fount - Heave ho!
Beyond all measure - Heave ho!
Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump now - Heave ho!
To plumb this earth now - Heave ho!
Quench the thirst - Heave ho!
Irrigate the deserts - Heave ho!
Tend this garden - Heave ho!
And never forget - Heave ho!
To go back again - Heave ho!
To that bottomless well - Heave ho!

“Like a silkworm weaving her house with love from her marrow, and dying in her body’s threads winding tight, round and round, I burn desiring what the heart desires. Cut through, O lord, my heart’s greed, and show me your way out, O lord white as jasmine.”

Mahadeviyakka, 12th century Kannada poet-saint of south India.


There is the cry of yearning of the lover, as she sighs for her beloved.

There is the cry of man, as he seeks God.

And there is the anguished cry of Earth herself, at her cruel fate, exhausted, grieving,
seeking release and redemption from her all- and ever-nurturing role,
crying for the warmth of union in the divine family,
even as she unfailingly persists in looking after the well-being of all living beings.

This is the voice of Reshma.

Reshma’s voice is the voice of the soil of Punjab,
that providential land nourished by sunshine and rivers,
that has produced such giants of human upliftment as Nanak and Bulle Shah ...
A rich land, whose songs evoke an imagery of lonely parched earth thirsty for the rain of union.

Her voice is the voice of Sind, the land of our source, home of the revered Jhulelal, that has historically served as a bridge between Hindu and Muslim.

Reshma’s voice is the voice of the sand-dunes of Rajasthan, the desert,
that has produced valourous warriors and builders of magnificent forts and palaces, cities and kingdoms,
a land of wandering minstrels
whose songs about the incomprehensibility of this confounding world
verily drape the dunes,
where brave, strong, suffering women glazed by the harsh and beautiful desert
heave their sad sighs for release.

Reshma’s voice is the voice of Pakistan, ... of India,
of this cradle of human civilisation, sunk within a world mired in destructive madness.

Reshma’s voice is the voice of humanity, of the planet,
identifying and expressing its most primal cry:
a gasp for breath, a clutch at life, a stirring for survival, a plea for love.

Reshma’s song, her voice, is that of Mother Earth,
coming from deep, deep within the bowels of our consciousness,
echoing hauntingly through the cold, dark, empty void of the universe,
touching the core of our selves, invoking an awesome vision, of oneness, separation and reunion,
helping us identify ourselves as earth’s offspring, cosmic beings,
alive to both the devastating grief and the explosive joy that the human condition evokes.

Reshma calls for a cleansing and revitalising of humanity
in today’s nadir of devastation and inhumanity,
so that the new millennium is one of genuine advance
of the human spirit.

And so Earth sends Reshma, and her voice, her songs, her cry,
as an act of survival, and as a means for human renewal.

Night.
Ascent.
Lights of the city.
Memories:
of funereal processions of once beloved saints,
and conflagrations, of riotous arson,
spreading hatred's poison fire.
The stars, far away, faint dots in the black sky.

Day.
Descent.
The needle of eternal knowledge
poised on the still waters of the ocean of sacrifice,
ringed by the pearls of devotion and service.
The light of the city dispells the noon of despair.
Streets, paved with jewels of wisdom, beckoning the children,
to come, and build tomorrow's citadel of peace.

From great killings partitioning the soul
to joint celebrations for union of hearts:
now is the city truly lit.
The light of the city
glows
with an infinitude of starlight...
a symphony of illumination.

Spark of daylight!
Spirit of life!
Oh what a delight
What a thrill
It is to meet
One such as this!
But to love
And be loved
Is dearer still.

Lo moon, over yonder eastern sky!
I b'lieve you're goin' into eclipse today!
Hold fast then, and keep your chin up mate!
Be sure to emerge from earth's shadowy date.
You've weathered clouds and comets galore,
And you'll surely be unvanquished once more.
Our hopes and destiny lie in the balance
Eternally must you shine in night's darkness.


Astrophotograph: Lunar eclipse of 16 September 1997, by Bengt Ask.

Awe of the universe
and reverence for the dear departed
interred for posterity
as subterranean viaducts
of amazing metropolitance.

A lilt or a tone in a voice or melody
Or the glow of a gilt-edged cloud
Compells discernment
And plunges one into a terrain
Of co-dwelling in blissful love.

A curl of the lip
Seen as a hateful sneer
Brings forth all one’s hatefulness
Into that hateful coitus
In cycles and counter-cycles of violence.

Water flows to its own level, they say. It seeks, does it?
And when it sights that mate, divine or degenerate,
in the cavern of deep consciousness
Does it shriek?
And do the tunnels of mind-body resound with the echo?


Illustration: Nathaniel Klein

for Cileme

Heavens burst forth,
casting jewels
in offering
to celebrate
and welcome
the arrival
of the child
of the first ray
of the new dawn.


Image: Meteor shower, Department of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada.

"Praise His Lordship", they chant, disregarding the creator,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
If father hadn't mastered the ten chariots of desire
Would son have emerged at all?

"Even steven", they mock, and denigrate one another,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
Searching, and feeling, mounted in reverse direction
Horse-dung's all that's begotten!

They look for the point, they search for meaning,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
Mind entrapped, arrogant and blind,
Who's doing the looking and what's he feeling?

They castigate the supposedly greedy, smug and gay
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
Oh, how insubstantial the despair
Of those who rise to great depths!

They suffer and pine for what's no more,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
Sad indeed is the care-freedom
Of the life that is entirely deprived!

They dig up a mountain of earth to find a mole beneath,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
For sure, the rat who dug deep
Emerged from the molehill of earthly attachment!

They know not the one behind the pulse on their wrist,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
Amidst signs of silent homage everywhere,
The victorious bird soars clear of the clockwork of flesh!

They throw stones at the frog in the well,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
The sad sage who leapt, sang, and then suffered torture
Now sits drenched in the very heart of heaven!

They run after happiness, they run after pleasure,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
For sure the curse of eternal grief
Is the cup bearing the nectar of bliss.

"No elephants here", they say, scoffing at the silent sentinel,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
When rocks are eaten, won't you need
To put up signs prohibiting such behavior?

"Blood's thicker than water", they say, sanctimonious in every way,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
When 'tis blood that congeals so shamelessly
Praise be, that water's the thinner!

Deprived of meat, the dejected lover asks for gravy,
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
'Tis the sad heart's leap in imagination
That begins the spirit's voyage from the shores of flesh.

They pine for what was and wasn't, craving away
Rama looks, wistful and forlorn.
The destruction of being is the shattering of illusion
Eternity of birth and suffering brings the crown of immortality.

Lovely hills of Mussoorie,
Your sparking lights
Like jewels on a tiara,
Adorning the head
Of my fair RIMC.

All the animals in winter
Love to lie in the sun
Some are lucky to find it
And some with the thought must be done!

All the lovers in springtime
Love to walk hand in hand
Some are lucky to find one
And for some 'tis a deed to be done!

I am Satan
Come to God
My Master and Creator
To make my final peace.

I submit
And I accept
The judgement of my Lord
And the infinite mystery of his ways.

No depth did I leave uncovered
And yet everywhere I found only his Grace.
No hatred did I not unleash
But I was never spared His constant embrace.

The cycle of evil can now be put to an end
The lesson’s learnt, the struggle won.
Never but His dutiful slave was I,
Never but in his mystic employ,

For the soul of Man did I symbolise.
T’was love in the beginning and love in the end,
Though conflict all in between
But to see His love in deepest pain is what brings the union again.

A great work of literature
Is ultimately a collection of words,
Made up of letters,
Together with lots of marks of punctuation.
Writing a great story –
Is quite a great story.
Especially for that storyteller
Who writes his stories
Through his work in life.
Through day after day is that life lived out
Full of hours, minutes and seconds.
Though the big idea’s great, and everything looks certain
There’s no avoiding each letter, word and comma.
And so is it for the living story-writer
Each day’s grind must he endure.
The burden of life, the burden of labour
Is Man’s inevitable fate.
But a great story and a great life
Awakens the spirit and shows the way.


Painting: The Storyteller, by Martin Pate.