Not towards heaven but plunged in the Night-hills

Burns his will like a fire of triple splendour,—

A yearning a-quiver in God’s own abyss,

A deep red in the passion of the sealed heart

And, across the rainbow-rapture where no suns dim,

A truth-thought blazing in a gold-blue sky.

In the noon of that intense heat he gathered

The day which must awake to the summit-self

And turn into spiritual boon the earth-stuff.

Swift and sure pierced his Trident of Transformation:

The strength of his calm bore all infinity

Even as the atomic void made room for bliss.

RY Deshpande

6 November 1983