New Beginnings and Rebirth

Each Day A Life

I count each day a little life,
With birth and death complete;
I cloister it from care and strife
And keep it sane and sweet.

With eager eyes I greet the morn,
Exultant as a boy,
Knowing that I am newly born
To wonder and to joy.

And when the sunset splendours wane
And ripe for rest am I,
Knowing that I will live again,
Exultantly I die.

O that all Life were but a Day
Sunny and sweet and sane!
And that at Even I might say:
"I sleep to wake again."

The Clock's Clear Voice Into The Clearer Air
THE cock's clear voice into the clearer air
Where westward far I roam,
Mounts with a thrill of hope,
Falls with a sigh of home.
A rural sentry, he from farm and field
The coming morn descries,
And, mankind's bugler, wakes
The camp of enterprise.
He sings the morn upon the westward hills
Strange and remote and wild;
He sings it in the land
Where once I was a child.
He brings to me dear voices of the past,
The old land and the years:
My father calls for me,
My weeping spirit hears.
Fife, fife, into the golden air, O bird,
And sing the morning in;
For the old days are past
And new days begin.

Spring Song
THE air was full of sun and birds,
The fresh air sparkled clearly.
Remembrance wakened in my heart
And I knew I loved her dearly.
The fallows and the leafless trees
And all my spirit tingled.
My earliest thought of love, and Spring's
First puff of perfume mingled.
In my still heart the thoughts awoke,
Came lone by lone together -
Say, birds and Sun and Spring, is Love
A mere affair of weather?

Night and Day
When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, Flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.
As the blinding shadows fall
As the rays diminish,
Under evening's cloak they all
Roll away and vanish.
Garden darkened, daisy shut,
Child in bed, they slumber--
Glow-worm in the hallway rut,
Mice among the lumber.
In the darkness houses shine,
Parents move the candles;
Till on all the night divine
Turns the bedroom handles.
Till at last the day begins
In the east a-breaking,
In the hedges and the whins
Sleeping birds a-waking.
In the darkness shapes of things,
Houses, trees and hedges,
Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings
Beat on window ledges.
These shall wake the yawning maid;
She the door shall open--
Finding dew on garden glade
And the morning broken.
There my garden grows again
Green and rosy painted,
As at eve behind the pane
From my eyes it fainted.
Just as it was shut away,
Toy-like, in the even,
Here I see it glow with day
Under glowing heaven.
Every path and every plot,
Every blush of roses,
Every blue forget-me-not
Where the dew reposes,
"Up!" they cry, "the day is come
On the smiling valleys:


We have beat the morning drum;
Playmate, join your allies!"

The Lockless Door
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a "Come in"
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

Epilogue
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
--Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
--Being--who?
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever
There as here!"

The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk

O mad, superbly drunk;

If you kick open your doors and
play the fool in public;

If you empty your bag in a night,
and snap your fingers at prudence;

If you walk in curious paths and
play with useless things;

Reck not rhyme or reason;

If unfurling your sails before the
storm you snap the rudder in two,

Then I will follow you, comrade,
and be drunken and go to the dogs.

I have wasted my days and nights
in the company of steady wise neighbours.

Much knowing has turned my hair
grey, and much watching has made
my sight dim.

For years I have gathered and
heaped up scraps and fragments of
things:

Crush them and dance upon them,
and scatter them all to the winds.

For I know 'tis the height of wisdom
to be drunken and go the dogs.

Let all crooked scruples vanish,
let me hopelessly lose my way.

Let a gust of wild giddiness come
and sweep me away from my anchors.

The world is peopled with worthies,
and workers, useful and clever.

There are men who are easily first,
and men who come decently after.

Let them be happy and prosper,
and let me be foolishly futile.

For I know 'tis the end of all works
to be drunken and go to the dogs.

I swear to surrender this moment
all claims to the ranks of the decent.

I let go my pride of learning and
judgment of right and of wrong.

I'll shatter memory's vessel, scattering
the last drop of tears.

With the foam of the berry-red
wine I will bathe and brighten my
laughter.

The badge of the civil and staid
I'll tear into shreds for the nonce.

I'll take the holy vow to be worthless,
to be drunken and go to the dogs.

Flower


Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it
droop and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of
pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am
aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower
in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

Closed Path

I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,---that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.


But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.

Brahmā, Vişņu, Śiva

I THE DARK

In a worldless timeless lightless great emptiness
Four-faced Brahma broods.


nasad asin, no sad asit tadanim;
nasid raja no vioma paro yat.
kim avarivah? kuha? kasya sarmann?
Ambhah kim asid, gahanam gabhiram?


na mytur asid, amrtam na tarhi.
na ratria ahna asit pratekh.
anid avatam svadhaya tad ekam.
tasmad dhanyan na parah kim canasa.


tama asit tamasa gudham agre;
apraketam salilam sarvam a idam.
tuchyenabhu apihitam yad asit,
tapasas tan mahinajayataikam.


Of a sudden sea of joy surges through his heart –
The ur-god opens his eyes.
Speech from four mouths
Speeds from each quarter.
Through infinite dark,
Through limitless sky,
Like a growing sea-storm,
Like hope never sated,
His Word starts to move.


Stirred by joy his breathing quickens,
His eight eyes quiver with flame.
His fire-matted hair sweeps the horizon,
Bright as a million suns.


From the towering source of the world
In a thousand streams
Cascades the primeval blazing fountain,
Fragmenting silence,
Splitting its stone heart.


kamas tad agre sam avartatadhi
manaso retah prathamam yad asit?
sato bandhum asati nir avindan
hrdi pratisya kavayo manisa


II THE MUSIC


In a universe rampant
With new life exhalant,
With new life exultant,
Vishnu spreads wide



His four-handed blessing.
He raises his conch
And all things quake
At its booming sound.
The frenzy dies down,
The furnace expires,
The planets douse
Their flames with tears,
The world’s Divine Poet
Constructs its history,
From wild cosmic song
Its epic is formed.
Stars in their orbits,
Moon sun and planets –
He binds with his mace
All things to Law,
Imposes the discipline
Of metre and rhyme.


In the Manasa depths
Vishnu watches -
Beauties arise
From the light of lotuses.
Lakshmi strews smiles -
Clouds show a rainbow,
Gardens show flowers.
The roar of Creation
Resolves into music.
Softness hides rigour,
Forms cover power.


tirascino vitato rasmir esam:
adhah svid asid, upari svid asit?
retodha asan, mahimana asan;
svadha avasat, prayatih parastat.


Age after age after age is slave to a mighty rhythm –
At last the world-frame
Tires in its body,
Sleep in its eyes
Slackens its structure,
Diffuses its energy.
From the heart of all matter
Comes the anguished cry –
‘Wake, wake, great Shiva,
Our body grows weary
Of its law-fixed path,
Give us new form.
Sing our destruction,
That we gain new life.’


III THE FIRE



The great god awakes,
His three eyes open,
He surveys all horizons.
He lifts his bow, his fell pinaka,
He pounds the world with his tread.
From first things to last it trembles and shakes
And shudders.
The bonds of nature are ripped.
The sky is rocked by the roar
Of a wave of ecstatic release.
An inferno soars –
The pyre of the universe.


Shattered sun and moon, smashed stars and planets,
Rain down from all angles,
A blackness of all particles
To be swallowed by flame,
Absorbed in an instant.
At the start of Creation
There was a dark without origin,
At the breaking of Creation
There is fire without end
In an all-pervading sky-engulfing sea of burning
Shiva shuts his three eyes.
He begins his great trance.


ko adha veda? Ka iha pravocat,
kuta ajata, kuta iyam visrstih?
arvag deva asya visajanena:
atha ko veda yata ababhuva?


iyam visrstir yata ababhuva;
yadi vasa dadhe yadi van na:
yo asyadhyaksah parame vioman
so anga veda, yadi va na veda.

Hellas
THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be--
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy!
The world is weary of the past--
O might it die or rest at last!

Chorus from Hellas
The world`s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faith and empires gleam,
Like a wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulyssses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore...

Psalm


No-man kneads us again out of Earth and Loam,
no-man spirits our Dust.
No-man.


Praise to you, No-man.
For love of you
we will flower.
Moving
towards you.


A Nothing
we were, we are, we shall
be still, flowering:
the Nothing-, the
No-man’s-rose.


With
our Pistil soul-bright,
our Stamen heaven-torn,
our Corolla red
with the Violet-Word that we sang
over, O over
the thorn.

The House of Odes

Writing
these
odes
in this
year nineteen
hundred and
fifty-five,
readying and tuning
my demanding, murmuring lyre,
I know who I am
and where my song is going.
I understand
that the shopper for myths
and mysteries
may enter
my wood
and adobe
house of odes,
may despise
the utensils,
the portraits
of father and mother and country
on the walls,
the simplicity
of the bread
and the saltcellar. But
that's how it is in my house of odes.
I deposed the dark monarchy,
the useless flowing hair of dreams,
I trod on the tail
of the cerebral reptile,
and set things
-- water and fire in
harmony with man and earth.
I want everything
to have
a handle,
I want everything to be
a cup or a tool,
I want people to enter a hardware
store through the door of my odes.
I work at
cutting
newly hewn boards,
storing casks
of honey,
arranging
horseshoes, harness,
forks:
I want everyone to enter here,
let them ask questions,
ask for anything they want.


I am from the South, a Chilean,
a sailor
returned
from the seas.
I did not stay in the islands,
a king.
I did not stay ensconced
in the land of dreams.
I returned to labor simply
beside others,
for everyone.
So that everyone
may live here,
I build my house
with transparent
odes.

Always


I am not jealous
of what came before me.


Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!


Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

Last Will And Testament
Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk ()

The Rock Cries Out to Us Today

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.



Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope



Good morning.

California Prodigal

FOR DAVID P—B

The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms
The gentle buttocks of a young
Giant. In the nestle,
Old adobe bricks, washed of
Whiteness, paled to umber,
Await another century.


Star Jasmine and old vines
Lay claim upon the ghosted land,
Then quiet pools whisper
Private childhood secrets.


Flush on inner cottage walls
Antiquitous faces,
Used to the gelid breath
Of old manors, glare disdainfully
Over breached time.


Around and through these
Cold phantasmatalities,
He walks, insisting
To the languid air,
Activity, music,
A generosity of graces.


His lupin fields spurn old
Deceit and agile poppies dance
In golden riot. Each day is
Fulminant, exploding brightly
Under the gaze of his exquisite
Sires, frozen in the famed paint
Of dead masters. Audacious
Sunlight casts defiance
At their feet.

Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-Jo

On this tiny globe
A few flies dash themselves against the wall,
Humming without cease,
Sometimes shrilling,
Sometimes moaning.
Ants on the locust tree assume a great-nation swagger
And mayflies lightly plot to topple the giant tree.
The west wind scatters leaves over Changan,
And the arrows are flying, twanging.
So many deeds cry out to be done,
And always urgently;
The world rolls on,
Time presses.
Ten thousand years are too long,
Seize the day, seize the hour!
The Four Seas are rising, clouds and waters raging,
The Five Continents are rocking, wind and thunder roaring.
Our force is irresistible,
Away with all pests!

The Farewell XXVIII
And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that
has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he
reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended
another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of
heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will
come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I
seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in
words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise
till another day. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather
into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered


your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew
you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of
your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of
your youths in rivers.
And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing.
But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability
you are deathless.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of
its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency.
Ay, you are like an ocean,
And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an
ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.


And like the seasons you are also,
And though in your winter you deny your spring,
Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended.
Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He
praised us well. He saw but the good in us."
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought.
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of
our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself,
And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion,
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your
wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.
There are no graves here.
These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone.
Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well
thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.
Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have
given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching
lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward, -


That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;
And it drinks me while I drink it.
Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive gifts.
To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you would have had me sit at
your board,
And slept in the portico of the temple where you would gladly have sheltered me,
Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet
to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
For this I bless you most:
You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,
And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.
And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness,
And you have said, "He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.
He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city."
True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places.
How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance?
How can one be indeed near unless he be far?
And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said,
Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits
where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our
wine."


In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of
your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted:
For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in
you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for
safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most
determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your
city and fashioned all there is in it?


Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing
by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have
heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son
against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,


And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our
hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the
sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must
part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together
and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the
sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and
cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was
carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall,
remembering in her heart his saying,
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."

The Eternal Child

O the nameless eternal child
you have come across unknown lands,
what ornament of name you have put on!


What a prison it is for the chainless!

Tell me, by what name I'll call you again
to my heart's content,
you lost your way from this home
where you lived, where you do come back
over and over again losing your own name.

O my sweet dear,
you are the radiant pearl of my dark home
filling the hungry home with little butter

your tiny hand has brought.

That today in intimate happiness
a sea of wailing swells up in my bosom

to call you by a new name,
who is there to stop my voice
my mind, too, utterly dejected.


You came from settling down, O traveller
stepping toward rising up.

[Original: Chiro Shishu; Translation: Mohammad Nurul Huda]

The Ecstasy of Destruction

Come, make merry and rejoice.
There rages the summer storm
flying the flag of the New and the Young,

There comes he who had not come so long;
Dancing merrily
drink we will the joy of destruction.

There comes the Terrible
like the fierce executioner of eternal time
across the dark well of death
through smouldering smoke
lighting the torch of thunder.

There, listen to his ringing laughter.
Come, make merry and rejoice!

The wavy locks of his hair

make the sky rock and swing.
Even the ominous comet is at his service.
His blood, like an unsheathed sword,

rocks the bosom of the father of the universe.
Look, this wild tumultuous tunnoil
has made the sky and the earth still and numb
Come, make merry and rejoice.

A dozen suns glitter and shine in his burning eyes
And the sorrows of the world cluster in his
tangled and disheveled hair.
A single dropp of his tear
makes the seven seas roll and swell.
In his giant arms he crakles the mother-earth
and cries out, 'Welcome, Destruction! '
Come, comrades, make merry and rejoice, '

Oh, have no fear!
The deluge will soon overtake the universe.
The final hour is fast drawing near.
The rotting old and the dying decrepit


will now be wiped out for good.
Now at last at the end of the long night of darkness
The glorious dawn will come with a smile
in her soft and tender dress.
Look, there the young moon shines in his unkempt hair.

Its light will fill your room

and make it glow with a strange radiance,
Come, make merry and rejoice!
There he comes flashing his whip of blood and lightning,

directing the passage of eternity.
The neighing of his horse reverberates in the stormy wind
and in the song of thunder.
The blast of his hoofs hits the stars

and scatters them shooting


through the columns of the blue-domed sky.
The gods are all lying in the dead well
of a dark dungeon.

They are tied to the cold stony pillar
of the sacriticial altar.
Indeed this is the time for him

to come triumphantly riding his gorgeous chariot.
O comrades, come, make merry and rejoice!
Why should the sight of destruction frighten you?
All this upheaval is but the birth pain

of a new creation.
There comes the bold new youth
eager to wipe out all that is ugly and decayed.

He comes with' his unkempt hair and careless dress
on the wings of the Deluge
with a smile on his lips.

He is the eternal beauty
who knows how to destroy and build again,

Come, make merry and rejoice!

What fear has he
for whom all this destruction and rebuilding
is but a game?

Come, make merry and rejoice,
and welcome the Beautiful
who comes today in the garb of the Terrible.

[Translation: Kabir Chowdhury]

Song of the Student

We are the power, we are the strength,
We the band of students.
The stormy wind makes obeisance tonus
And clouds and airships bow
Before us, the students class.


We can move in the darkness of the night
Needing no guiding light.
We walk with bare feet
Ever ready to dangers meet.
We move like a terrific flood
Making the stony earth scarlet with our blood.
Throughout the ages
Our blood has wet this soil.
We are not afraid of work or toil,
We the student class.


We hold the reins of the horse
Of the great King Deat.
Our lifeless corpse
Will write the history of our fights.
In the country of laughter, whenever needed,
We bring tears, bitter and cold.
We the students, mighty bold.


When everybody gives wise counsel
We are the people who err.
When the cautious one builds embankments
We sit still and do not stir.
We are the dare-devil youth
Who care for none,
We make our path slippery with blood,
We the student class.


The light of knowledge shines in our eyes,
And in our hearts burn boble ideas.
On our lips dwell no lies,
Which only proclaim
Effortlessly and with ease
The call of all times,
That has survived through war and peace,
And we have made the white lilies
Purple with our blood,
We the students; who move like a mighty flood.


In these terrible days of revolution
We are eager to march ahead and fight,
So that light may burst out
Ending the eternal darkness of the night.
In us seeks the twentieth century
Her emancipation.
With our tears of glory



The mother-earth clothes herself
In resignation.
There is no fear of death for us,
The mighty student class.


We dream of a joyous future, gay and bright,
Built on hope and love,
The milky-way in the sky
Shows us our path, straight and wide.
Let the dream of millions come true and right,
Let them see the splendid sight
Through the eyes of us.
The student class.


Translation: Kabir Chowdhury

Eid, at the end of fasting of Ramadan

O heart, Ramadan has come to an end,
and the happy Eid knocks at the door for all,
Come, today give yourself away wholeheartedly,
heed the divine call.
.
Offer all your wealth and treasure
for the sake of your Benevolent Lord,
Pay zakat to awaken the dying Muslims,
from the slumber that they can't afford.


Come, O heart, offer your Eid prayer
in that sacred plain,
where valiant Muslims sacrificed their lives
and became martyrs, not in vain.


Let's forget today who is friend or foe,
and hold each other in caring embrace.
Let your love be the magnet
to bring the humanity to Allah's grace.


Remember those in perennial fast,
constantly in hunger and deprivation,
Share with the poor, orphans and the destitutes,
to make inclusive your celebration.


Pour into the bowl of your heart
the ambrosia of tawheed.
The Prophet himself might accept the invitation,
and come to join your feast, indeed.


O heart, with the very stones or bricks
that some people hurled at you all along,
build a wonderful mosque of love
with foundation, solid and strong.


[Translation: Mohammad Omar Farooq]