Raging Waters

To me gifts came from unexpected skies

And the world grew greener, more intimate,

A surging rapture as though a calm sea

Suddenly filled my self, night after night,

Under the rare moon in its beauty’s whole,

Until a new wonder began to shape

Its form of music. Its rush none can halt,

Busy men, nor ascetics of the wood,

Nor sophists arguing ever what-is

Cannot be what-is-not, yours or mine,—

And astonished stood my neighbours. All changed,

The rocks, the trees, the cow-pen, the farmhouse,

Even the treadle of the press, internet,

And was seen in the true dawning twilight

An eagle of blue mountain in the sky.

Another echo from cave of the heart

In deep amethyst calm travelled across

In faintness of hope. The spirit awoke

Even to outer sense, and abolished

Was the dichotomy between being

And non-being. A great power, unknown

To struggling life, took the difficult charge.

I now witness a stranger happening,

Even the day plunging into darkness

To know the mystery that shall make it

Brighter yet, with suns receiving night’s riches.

I’ve become one with the soul of the earth,

I’ve borne the olden grief of truth, unease

Of delight from which all came, and to which

All return. Under that happy heaven

It seemed for long centuries she was tied

To futility’s work-post. But chaos

Ripened into destiny; now I see

The new thing arriving, greatly to live.

The dreams of night are asleep in its eyes,—

The sleep of consciousness splendid in trance.

RY Deshpande

23 May 2004