Play to Meet

The children, with shouts and dances
meet on the seashore of endless worlds
beside waters so boisterous and restless
with motionless infinite sky overhead.

They build their houses with sand, playing
with empty shells, weaving their boats
with withered leaves and smilingly float
on the vast deep to continue their play.

These children know not how to swim, or cast nets
while pearl fishers dive for pearls, and merchants
sail in ships as children gather pebbles to scatter
for these little ones seek not to hoard treasures.

The sea surges with laughter and the sea beach smiles
with shining light while the death-dealing waves sing
meaningless lullabies to children as a mother rocking
her baby's cradle even as the sea plays with children.

And storms roam in the pathless sky while ships
get wrecked in the trackless water, with death
abroad children continue to play on the seashore
of endless worlds, a great meeting of children.

Adopted from Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem 60
(This poem is also Tagore’s Crescent Moon, poem 2)

Henry Victor          22.10.2012