In the Playing of Sarod (1969)

(from Beauty, Be My Brahman, 2004)

 

How to make Anguish from a string?

 

I want the contours of the plains

In music moksha-bound,

A soft scream

Alone in time,

Inkling of each and all.

 

I find it in the steadying of a tone,

- The act of steadying,

Crossing the bridge,

That harbours consonance,

Reaching purity,

Claiming the peak

That raises my cry

Up towards absence

To be lost in silence,

Perfect in silence…

 

Can opposites merge?

 

Only in the reflected melody of the stars,

The moon, the sun expiring,

The begetting rain,

The whimper of the vastness

Between mountain and the plain –

 

In the playing of sarod,

Songs of origins again.