Like silk just severed, it has died out— my old faithful impoverished lamp in time's dim chamber; that too was long ago. Ignoring all the light of autumn's preparations, no harvest blessing came to courtyard, granary; so with empty bowl in hand I beg the gentle wrath of some distant light or non-light.
God's unearthly forgiveness is the soul's soft breeze that carries me wrapped within; sacred light comes and pulls me from the darkened room into the light— where life is more than nectar.
That forgiveness, that light, that invocation did not sound as mantra's tune in this heart; yet the days pass just the same. Before storms rise in the river the ferry founders. Slowly on the field's defeated grass twilight descends; separation today is not in death but at day's end or in the sun's departure.
It seems the song stopped just as light's prayer ended— I'll go home now...before the thought formed, the last ferry came and departed again from the dead or abandoned ghat!
Pushing through the courtyard's darkness, suddenly light's blow! In that sound, shiuli's fragrance, the garden visible in one sweep. In morning's victory-thirsting sun—humility, tenderness, forgiveness— they all smile in promise's form; in exchange for silence... Perhaps I was wrong...from emptiness somewhere in someone's house light burns, conch shells sound; the house wall's plaster crumbles and falls, and baring salt-white teeth, brilliant noon laughs— like some beloved errors of our mother!