Sufi Poem

Sharing a warm Sufi poem by a great Persian Sufi poet Shiraz (1315 - 1390).


I Have Learned So Much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, and angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

Translated by Daniel Lazinsky.

Nuggets 1

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996

Poet Extraordinaire

(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

Today, December 11, is legendary Tamil firebrand poet Subramanya Bharathi's 126th birth anniversary. His dazzlingly brilliant output amazes and rouses legions of readers. Let me just illustrate it with one of his very popular poems, first in Tamil and then its English translation ( courtesy http://melancholetta.blogspot.com)

தேடிச் சோறுநிதந் தின்று
பல சின்னஞ் சிறுகதைகள் பேசி
மனம் வாடித் துன்பமிக உழன்று
பிறர் வாடப் பல செயல்கள் செய்து
நரை கூடிப் கிழப்பருவம் எய்தி
கொடுங் கூற்றுக் கிரையெனப்பின் மாயும்
பல வேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போலே
நான் வீழ்வே னென்று நினைத்தாயோ?

Scavenging for their daily rice,
And wagging chins on various insignificant fibs
Dejected in spirit, and toiling in vain suffering
Performing deeds that scathe fellow-men
Aging with greyed hair (in due course)
Burdened to hear noxious bile (churned of them)

Like these risible people (who live in vain)

Did you think I would fall suit
And be Struck down?

That being the translation in literal, following is the message in spirit....

Did you think, (Oh Time),
that i too would give up and fall ,
like these risible fools who -
in search of food,
in useless gossip,
in suffering,
in speaking ill and while spoken ill of
get older and die ?

Memories

If you are into poetry, you should try Anna Akhmatova. She was a great Russian poet. Wikipedia entry on her states "Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism". I will reproduce here one of her best known poems.

‘Like a white stone in a well’s depths’

Like a white stone in a well’s depths,
a single memory remains to me,
that I can’t, won’t fight against:
It’s happiness – and misery.

I think someone who gazed full
in my eyes, would see it straight.
They’d be sad, be thoughtful,
as if hearing a mournful tale.

I know the gods changed people
to things, yet left consciousness free,
to keep suffering’s wonder alive still.
In memory, you changed into me.

Yet Another Poem

I came across this poem recently and cannot resist putting it here. Dehumanizing aspect of war cannot be better illustrated I feel. The poem is by Randall Jarrell

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Arun Kolatkar

I am dazzled by Arun Kolatkar's poems. He evokes stunning visual imagery with his choice of words. His collection of poems "Jejuri" is a masterpiece. I am giving here one of his works.

A Low Temple

A low temple keeps its gods in the dark.
You lend a matchbox to the priest.
One by one the gods come to light.
Amused bronze. Smiling stone. Unsurprised.
For a moment the length of a matchstick
gesture after gesture revives and dies.
Stance after lost stance is found
and lost again.
Who was that, you ask.
The eight arm goddess, the priest replies.
A sceptic match coughs.
You can count.
But she has eighteen, you protest.
All the same she is still an eight arm goddess to the priest.
You come out in the sun and light a charminar.
Children play on the back of the twenty foot tortoise.