| DANCING WORDS, East Grinstead, 3 December 2004 |
India’s Song
(to Indra Nath Choudhuri) (2001)
(from Beauty, Be My Brahman, 2004)
India is her land – too vast to know,
Outlasting the ploughs that scratch her face,
Or the trains criss-crossing her to and fro.
India is her past – too old to trace,
Older than even the gods she conceived,
Or the realms her deepest words embrace.
India is her injustice – that long has grieved
Parents of children born to be poor,
Made the real too unreal to be believed.
India is her people – more and more,
Their hopes like temple-sculpture twined,
Whose energies surge as their talents soar.
India is her warmth – of the summers that grind
Limbs to a torpor, but release at dark
Wit, companionship, deftness of mind.
India is her death – the cosmic spark
That creates, yet finally purifies:
That destroys a whole universe, leaving no mark.
India is her beauty – her deer-like eyes,
Her wet black hair – but her squalor too:
Her perfume and stink, her truth and her lies.
India is her tolerance – but also her saffron hue,
Too bright, too bright for some who dwell
In her orbit: for them she must dress anew.
India is her promise – still to be born from her spell,
A song that those who love her hear
In their heart of hearts, yet which cannot dispel
Her pain and rage and confusion. Will it ring out near
In the new age? Will its meaning grow?
The planet will need the song to be strong and clear.
(from Eight Sections, 1974)
This is our room. Come in.
It’s too small: an Edwardian
playroom. Light, though,
with windows to the garden.
Shall I open a window?
Penny, Penny, smiling
and trembling all the day,
you breathe too fast that’s why
you often faint away.
We try and make you walk
because you never walk,
Penny, heavy-girl Penny
needs proper legs not stalks.
Lanky Andrew knows
he shouldn’t fiddle there:
there? Nothing was once
an echolelic stare.
Woman’s Own, Andy?
Dance like a puppet
to the unstrung echo
of a brassičre, Randy, the poppet.
Nicky, the darling grins
if you praise his Lego tower,
chirrups when he’s tickled, shrieks
when he’s under the shower.
Chinese Nicky, are you happy
when you’re happy, was it best
to be merrily selfish
from the time your self went west?
Bernard’s a lad who loves
to play at cars: thin
arm highway: Vrrmm: halt
at a black, chinchopper chin.
So fastidious, dapperly
jumps like a spring. Mad
boy, Bernard! Didn’t you talk
to your mother in Trinidad?
This is their room. Come in.
It’s too small: an Edwardian
Playroom. Light, though,
With windows to the garden.
Shall I open a window?
*
Tim, fringed with light,
a choice of places: stands.
Sits: calves tight
to the floor, flickering hands.
Or, sliding the window,
skips behind the shed
to his own flagstone: where Tim
sits, bobbing his head.
Come now, Tim, you’ve often
done jigsaws: try!
Pieces served to a fleeting
hand and teetering eye.
Smile across the table
for doing it? Stern,
tremulous twelve-years,
piggy-back, high? Burn
the light with your smiles, Tim,
the air with chuckling, till,
refused a ride forever
you will let fly, you will
chuck around (Time, whose spinning
Limbs grind to a sad,
Panting gaze, we are sure
Is neither stupid nor mad).
*
To spin, quietly, some thing,
or the ball behind the shed,
on, and in, is to pin
his bevel-eyes and head
to their own rocking,
tick…tock…or the ball
spins on earth to be thrown
at the same tree to fall
again to its same spinning.
tick…tock…or we swing
Tim up, back and ever
the teacher of time who sings
like a stream, over and there,
under leaves, netted by slim
traces of the sun by which
we are trying to see you, Tim.
*
Water. The filling of mug
from bottle means ship
the stuff from mug to bottle
through a funnel or it will slip
your fingers. Good. We advance,
we advance. Sunlight leaks
through walls along a wire:
switch it off? I speak with words, Tim, to close
door, dry hands,
fetch sweets: he does.
We hope the smile that stands
at the window wires up
sunshine to make man.
Look at me, Tim. The smile,
still dripping, closes like a fan;
eyes withdraw from the light,
swivel, turn askance
into darkness, intelligent
of time. We advance, we advance?
*
One step forward is two
steps back. Tim, walk properly.
A hopscotch homewards
from the shops, spindly
with fear. Watch. Magnets
harness the poles as words
do living. Games. South
to south is northwards backwards.
Bricks. Support the stair
behind. Colours. Brown
goes with brown. Drawing.
A circle must be round.
Words. Say after me.
NYAA! Bones flaying
knock bricks flying
through the window. Shsh. Eyes
crack sunlight to squinny
through fractured glass
and toys to the dark spinny
where spindleshank Tim swings:
tick…tock…Look:
Sunlight is broken under leaves.
Words, Tim, patch
it whole. But, what
is our mind’s end if not
to smash the light of words,
to squint right through the slots
we make for time and swing
into dark, O Tim, you gently
spinning freckled thing?
*
Racing the path to the garden,
on your marks, get set,
ready steady go!
With a ride for reward or you fret,
Tim, ups-a-daisy so you flash
the light from your eyes to mine,
from teeth which crackle with the chuckles
that are speech, Tim, your signs!
Soft. Fondness for me now.
The message, I will be missed,
in cheeks, crimped with joy,
turned wistfully to be kissed.
What about Tim the menial?
Come and clear the plates,
Go and fetch the sweets:
the smile, we hope, waits
at the cupboard to pluck ‘please’
from sunshine. It does. We advance.
I ask: all gain without loss?
A single please is a chance
for servitude, no hope
of light in words to sting
through to their own wordless
end. Darkness swings,
Tim, in the wake of the sun.
Come. A choice of places
stands at the window, turns
away with sunlight on his face.
*
This is our room. Come in.
It’s too small: an Edwardian
playroom. Light, though,
with windows to the garden.
Shall I open a window?
Bernard’s a lad who loves
to play at cars: thin
arm highway: Vrrmm: halt
at a black, chinchopper chin.
So fastidious, dapperly
jumps like a spring. Mad
boy, Bernard! Didn’t you talk
to your mother in Trinidad?
Nicky, the darling grins
if you praise his Lego tower,
chirrups when he’s tickled, shrieks
when he’s under the shower.
Chinese Nicky, are you happy
when you’re happy, was it best
to be merrily selfish
from the time your self went west?
Tim’s the one the sun
gives black hair shining speckles;
his limbs are long, pale skin
come out in tiny freckles.
Tim is mournfully jealous
of Nicky’s new spinning top:
come along, sit in your chair
and we’ll get you a lollipop.
Lanky Andrew knows
he shouldn’t fiddle there:
there? Nothing was once
an echolelic stare.
Woman’s Own, Andy?
Dance like a puppet
to the unstrung echo
of a brassiere, Randy, the poppet.
Penny, Penny, smiling
and trembling all the day,
you breathe too fast that’s why
you often faint away.
We try and make you walk
because you never walk,
Penny, heavy-girl Penny
needs proper legs not stalks.
This is their room. Come in.
It’s too small: an Edwardian
playroom. Light, though,
with windows to the garden.
Shall I open a window?
The Saint (1983)
(from ‘Seven Poems’ in Louring Skies, 1985)
The grip of her hands is warm with sin;
Her holiest smile is an impish grin.
Once she was proud of her hands’ soft skin
And she washed and scrubbed to clear them of sin.
Right hand said, ‘Wash again, there is sin
Still clinging to my delicate flawless skin.’
Left hand said, ‘If I let you win
No man nor woman shall be her kin –
She must stick her arms in the rubbish-bin!
In the battle of the hands neither should win.’
The grip of her hands is kind with sin;
Her holiest smile is an impish grin.
The Lake (1983)
(from ‘Seven Poems’ in Louring Skies, 1985)
We had to learn. We had to break
Asunder, tear our hearts to make
Wounds that could heal. O kind heart-ache,
O nightmares, blest if at last they wake
To this reconcilement! Look at the lake:
Our smiles join sun, join wind to rake
Its face into joy. We do partake,
Sometimes, of power that can sometimes shake
Life into beauty. The waters may quake
Coldly again; the spell will break;
But let us remember, for hope’s sake,
Today our smiles walked on the lake.
In the Playing of Sarod (1969)
(from Beauty, Be My Brahman, 2004)
How to make Anguish from a string?
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 whimper of the vastness
Between mountain and the plain –
Songs of origins again.
(from Beauty, Be My Brahman, 2004)
Sarod, my teacher’s hopes of me
Were long ago betrayed.
So why have I let you lie so long
Unused, unheard, unplayed?
Was it because I thought one day
I’d pluck your strings anew?
Or did I hope to find at last
A player worthy of you?
Or was it just because you seemed
To represent my youth
(Those months at Sanawar, aged eighteen)
And I couldn’t face the truth
That youth in time must be given away?
But now, with my donation,
I feel no pain of loss, but rather
The joy of liberation.
I understand, when I observe
My students’ youth and yearning,
That, when we teach, we need to give
Not only age and learning
But also our youth; and if we don’t,
There’ll be no vital spark,
No gleam of hope in our students’ eyes,
No pathway out of the dark.
And this I’ll think if ever I pass
The Music Department’s rooms
And hear the twang of my old sarod:
That a student only blooms
If a teacher gives away his youth,
Lightening, thus, the load
That age and experience place on him!
So I give you gladly, sarod.
Song of the City (tr. 2000)
Rabindrananath Tagore (1895)
(from Beauty, Be My Brahman, 2004)
Where has it gone, that noble calmness,
Fresh and pure and graceful greenness,
Edged with a hem of shining blueness,
Beautiful, kindly world?
Sky’s delight by light excited,
Secretive gardens, coolly shaded,
Where have the buzzing bees retreated –
What brings us to this pass?
O city, city, jungle of people,
Road after road, buildings innumerable,
Everything buyable, everything saleable,
Uproar, hubbub, noise.
Enormous profits, thumping crashes,
Sky-polluting foul dust-flurries,
Whipped by the sun into swirling eddies,
Soiling heaven and earth.
Everything fitful, broken, fleeting,
No lasting sign behind remaining,
A quick combining, fast dividing
Dash to the sea of death.
Pathetic weeping, raucous revelry,
Tyrannous arrogance, abject slavery,
Futile striving, malicious raillery,
Hurtling forward en masse.
Nothing fixed for a single moment,
No desire for anything permanent,
Constant activity, ceaseless movement
By day and by dark of night.
Each in pursuit of a gleaming fantasy,
Desperate to hunt and catch an illusory
Golden deer that dances endlessly –
Old and young rush on.
It’s like a ritual bonfire leaping,
Snouts and trunks of fire flailing,
Scrabbling and scratching the sky with raging
Hunger for more and more.
Crowds of men and women around it,
Hurry to heap and stoke and worship it,
Break and smash their lives to nourish it,
Offer their souls as fuel.
Fanatics serve it with butchered bodies,
Feed it with bones and gushing arteries,
Feeling in all their rites and ecstasies
Death’s golden allure.
Flames rise high with roaring menace,
Sky is clouded with smoke from the furnace,
Sun and moon disappear in a thunderous
Universal blaze.
Winds whipped up by heat to a frenzy
Circle the dazzling fire in a fury,
Dismally roam and howl frustratedly,
Whoosh and hiss and sigh –
Flutter and flap with the helpless terror
Thousands of mother-birds showed at that horror:
Holocaust when the forest of Khandava
Fell to Agni’s greed.
Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Sudras,
Age and status no longer matters,
All converge as the burning gathers,
Hurl their lives right in.
Seeing this massive fiery spectacle,
Heart, like a fly, is drawn to the dazzle,
Longs to add to the wild hubble-bubble
Blood of self-slashed veins.
City, O city, rushing and pouring
Constantly forth like foaming and bubbling
Wine – let me lose myself by drinking
Deep of your essence today.
Stony nurse of human endeavour,
I shall become your fellow-traveller,
Stay awake with crowds that stagger
Through drunken, sleepless nights:
Whirling along with the communal frenzy,
Joining the great unfettered orgy,
Sinking my inmost dreams recklessly,
Let me be part of you.
Peace and calm I’ll treat as nothing,
Plunging down to the depths and soaring
Up on a comet’s tail and stretching
My arms towards the sun.
Whatever the games that fate has planned for me,
Some of them sweet and some bitter agony -
I’ll take them as they come.
Round on the wheel of joy and misery,
Riding high on poetry’s fantasy,
Swooping down with prose’s gravity,
Swung by the merry-go-round.
Seizing the city’s trumpet of conquest,
Grabbing all that is hardest and furthest,
I the unstoppably wildest and strongest
Will take what I want by force.
Joining the ranks of the bullies and predators,
Will and desire foisted on others,
Snatching food from my fellow-creatures,
I’ll tighten my violent grip.
The world in my mind will now be merely
A place for me to stamp on freely:
Kingly rule and daylight robbery
Seen as different no more.
Wealth and assets I’ll raid and shatter,
Reap my harvest by looting the farmer,
Unleash the king’s great horse to wander
Brazenly over the world.
Newly thirsty and newly eager,
Hungry for new kinds of work and power,
Page after page swiftly turned over
In life’s unfolding book.
Crooked and tortuous paths ahead of me,
Start unknown and end not clear to me,
Forward I’ll rush and cross unstoppably
Rivers, mountains and seas.
Looking ahead and never behind me,
A nestless, restless bird-of-the-night I’ll be,
You, fickle Fortune, laughing, will race me,
I shan’t bow down or beg before you,
I shan’t sit back and passively wait for you,
Let us fight – you’ll see who’ll master you,
I’ll bring you back in chains.
Human life is not for ever,
Fame and wealth and status and power
Are not the slaves of any owner –
The river of time takes all.
So for a few days, a few nights only,
Let the clashing and crowded city
Fill the glass of my life completely
With churning, heady wine.
(from ‘Shakespearean Sketches’ in The Retreat, 1994;
reprinted in Beauty, Be My Brahman)
A prayer for this crawling earth,
For all who are at the worst,
Like the suckling mother who makes
The Bombay traffic lights so slow to change
And me the more superfluous the more I wait,
Ignoring her pleading hands
Outside my taxi-window; yet even she is glad
She is not the worst; so a prayer for the limbless man
I fastidiously step around
Blind Gloucester was the furthest down
For Shakespeare,
Yet he gave him Edgar:
A prayer for all for whom there is even no Mother Teresa,
And for me, too, if in some unimaginable blinded time
There is no wife, no daughter, no God to come
And say, ‘Give me thy arm.’
to the tune of Ananda-dhara bahiche bhubane by Tagore
(from Gifts: Poems 1992-1999; reprinted in Beauty, Be My Brahman)
It is your giving that my gifts should honour
It is your giving that my gifts should honour
Giving me my life with all its privileges and with its pain,
for I want no other
It is your giving that my gifts should honour
And the lives of every creature, all those who must endure
Far worse pain than I know; even the cruelty –
And the lives of every creature, all those who must endure
Far worse pain than I know; even the cruelty
Torturing our planet, all is a great wonder –
It is your giving that my gifts should honour
Vast is the world’s becoming, thus what I offer,
In what I write for you, must have grandeur –
Vast is the world’s becoming, thus what I offer,
In what I write for you, must have grandeur,
Tragedy and wit and humour, thoughtfulness and beauty,
Good and Evil both must energise me –
Tragedy and wit and humour, thoughtfulness and beauty,
Good and Evil both must energise me
If I’m to make my talent fit for its giver
It is your giving that my gifts should honour
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