Release
The one who filled
My heart with light,
Was divine.
The one who entered
My body as my breath
Was divine.
The one after meeting whom,
My soul learned to sing each moment
The music of detachment,
Was divine.
The one I remained tied to,
While he taught me
How to be free,
Was divine.
The one who painted
With the times brush
His time on my time,
Was divine.
The one who filled
The stone with a form
But remained formless,
Was divine.
The one who remained away
But allowed me to feel
That he was always with me,
Was divine.
The one who knocked
On my door again and again
To see that I was awake and not
Asleep,
Was divine।
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Man You Are Great
I said to the sky,
‘You are so high!’
The sky smiled
and said, ‘You are
higher than me.’
I said to the sea,
‘You are so deep.’
The sea swelled up and said,
‘You are deeper than me.’
I said the sun,
‘Dear Sun,
you are so bright.’
The sun laughed and said,
‘You are many times
brighter than me.’
I said to man,
‘Man you are great.’
Man said without
hesitation,
‘You are so right.’
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Masks
To scare our children
we made some scary
masks.
The children were frightened
for a while.
When they got wise about the masks,
they smiled.
The children are
no longer small.
They frighten us now
wearing our masks।
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Why Did I Wish
Today, the bird
looked at me intently,
then suddenly
flew away in fright.
I was sad when I realized
that I had wished
for a cage
to hold the bird in।
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Paths
Bird, the entire sky
is yours. Each time
you fly you make
your own path. Then you travel
from one end of the horizon
to the other singing all the while.
But the world gets lost,
or is ruined,
or loses itself
travelling the paths
it made for itself.
Your path, bird, however,
is always defined.
In using it
you leave the sky pristine।
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Emptiness
A bird alighted;
near it another bird
Came and sang.
The entire sky
resounded with the birds’
singing.
It’s man only who could not fill
his life’s emptiness
with mutual mild talk।
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Faith
I asked the bird,
‘The sky is vast,
are you not afraid
of getting lost?’
The bird said,
‘I know how to return
to my own पर्च
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Mirror holder
Whenever I cried
my mother held up
a mirror and said,
‘Look, this is how you look
when you weep’.
I laughed then,
imagining my
weepy face without even
glancing at the mirror.
Mother too cried once
when her mother died.
After that my mother
did nor laugh as see used to
till see died.
Perhaps there was no one
to hand a mirror to my mother.
Per haps we lose
one by one, those who
show us our face
by holding up a mirror।
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