What Is It That Preoccupies You All So?
Is it always bound to end in despair and sighs?
What makes people taste what must turn to ash?
In my eyes everything looks lovely and fresh,
All that I view appear to be pure and full of life,
The sky seems to me molten blue and fields green
I find buds blooming softly and moonlight serene
All that I behold seem to reflect my tranquility!
All that I see smile and sing even till death,
I feel no pain, know no tears, and taste no grief!
Flowers shed joyously, moonlight fades dreamily
The stars sail in a sea of light into the horizon!
Who can be this happy? Come and join me,
Friends, my happy songs will set you free.
Even if you must cry forever taste bliss this once
At least once in life forget pain and sing joyously!
Romantic
They call me romantic.
I accept the label,
Since I quest for existence's essence.
Dearest, my mantle I've hued in that color!
When I come to your door
I invoke you with a hymn
Based on a morning raga
Devoted to Bhairab, God of dawn.
I bring to your sanctum
An offering of the tuberose,
Embodying the scent of spring woods,
Wafted on a discreet breeze.
Tenderly, I recite poems for you,
Sentences set in placid measures,
The whole shaped by my art.
You listen, and inebriated, smile!
When I play an overture on my flute
Based on the Raga called Multan,
In the depth of my unconscious
It finds out its own level.
I center you in my dream world
Taking care to drop off
All the dust coating it.
It is a world I created.
Eluding the Almighty's gaze
.From his art studio I stole
Colors and essences,
And emulated his magic of creation.
I know that most of what I do is illusive,
And a lot indistinct.
When you query, "Can this be called realistic"?
I reply, "Never, I'm a Romantic!"
I know the roads taken in the real world.
I've paid my dues to them
Knowing that you can't do so in words
I respond to their summons.
It's a world of affliction, ailments, and squalor!
There women are scared of marauders
There I must fling my mantle and wear armor;
It's a place for sacrificing, suffering and striving.
A place where the battle-drum
Summons one to heroic action.
Let not that be a place for playacting,
Let that be a place where the beautiful
Walks with Bhairab, the God of Destruction!
Comments