In the Dzong of my imagination

Lived enlightened Buddha, a calm grandeur

In loneliness of the spirit. He seemed

Yet our worldly, herding the yak of time

On narrow ridges, by the life of death

Surrounded. Sorrow there is in the town,

And the breeze has sting, and mostly the past

Is unclean, like corrupted occultism.

But enormous peace is the foundation

On which are built these mountains. But the sky

Stood gazing upon snowy silences

That have left the uneasy tracts of thought

Behind, and a sudden answer entered

Into the body of trance. A presence

Wore another look plunging deeper yet

Beneath the hurtful gloom, and the nihil

Revealed the Nirvanic solidity

Supporting these thousand trifles; pain too.

Human anguish was as if to assert

Some expressive joy, and non-self as if

To dissolve the dichotomous being,

Frozen valley as if to draw closer

The fire, winter’s fruit. The sun that causes

Darkness disappeared: Neither day

Was there, nor the grim awful night gaping

Into the nought with starry eyes.

No sleep trembled with its dream, nor stillness

Heard the bird song. The conscience keeper

Wasn't there,—because needed he was no more,

As if all were absorbed into the blank.

Abolished were the worlds, perilous urge

Had no ground to be in that stupendous

Nonentity. The mouth of desire chewed

The nothing. What was, was taken away

And only remained the uncreated

Uncreating void. There was no Buddha.

RY Deshpande

11 July 2004

Courtesy Google Images