Drop me from a cloud on Ashai Bagh bridge,
Where, ten feet under my nose,
I may see the Dal and Nagin—eternal
Sisters of fathomless repose—meet
Below the awning of the bridge;
Where, bending over, the sentient
Eye of a frisky fish may look back
At me, askance, smile, and shake with
Merry abndon a silver-backed exploit
Contemptuous of a net, however adroit.
Where saucer-like lotus leaves skim
Upon the waters, suggesting how
One may be waterborne but not wet.
.
Where, looming over the lakes, the
Shankaracharya and Hari Parbat mounts
And the Maqdoom Sab and Chatti Padshahi
Shrines in secular-spiritual unison
Enact an idea so grand that
The earth, the sky, the waters,
Define a seamless consummation
Of the conglomerate that makes creation.
Then, when the shadows fall, and the
Swallows twitter home among the hills
in symphonic battalions,
I will know again the song that once
Made of my being a delighted thing.
Let my face yet again become indistinguishable
From the immensity of timeless space.
There among the pregnant swamps of carpeted
Foliage live wizened men, women,
And apple-faced children whose eyes,
However witness everyday to sufferings
Without aid or parallel, ooze an indifference
To hate unavailable among those
Who sulk where I live in dessicated wait.
Denizens of a valley of undiminished
Inward glow, the more they are put
To the sword of authority, the more
Readily they turn the sword to love.
Is this an idle l boast propelled
By retrograde age? I think not.
Rather an epiphany that comes,
If it comes, when all has been
Seen and lived, when the soul
Resurfaces to heal the bruises
Inflicted upon her by the
Expedient frenzy of splintered strivings
That, crassly, deny the whole.
At Ashai Bagh bridge, all comes
Together in a climate of oneness,
Defying the mere passing weather
Of motion without a universal goal.
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