The Edge of Life and Death

I was not aware of the moment that I first
crossed the edge of this present life, and I am unaware
of the power that exposed me into this unfamiliar
jungle like a bud in the forest at midnight.

But in the morning when I looked upon the light
I felt instantly that I was no stranger in this world
and that the impenetrable without name and form
had taken me in the arms in the form of my own mother.

And I know in death the same unknown will appear
as ever known, and since I love this life I know, for certain
I shall love death as well, for the child cries out only briefly
when the mother takes away the right breast to offer the left.

Adopted from Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem 95

Henry Victor          26.11.2012

Ineffable

I boasted among men and women
that I had known you, and they see
your picture in all my works
and ask me, ‘Who is he?’

I do not know to answer them
so I say, ‘Indeed, I cannot tell.’
Denouncing me, they go away with disdain
while you sit there smiling.

Then I put stories of you into songs
as inspiration rush from my heart
and men and women come to me
saying, ‘Tell us the meaning.’

I do not know to answer them
so I say, ‘Who knows what they mean!’
Denouncing me, they go away with disdain
while you sit there smiling.

Adopted from Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem 102

Henry Victor          14.11.2012

One in Many New

You have made me known to friends
not known earlier, and given me seats
in homes not my own, bringing the distant
near and making a brother of a stranger.

Yet, I am edgy at heart to leave the familiar
shelter due to my forgetting that the old
abides in the new, and the new was there
in the old, and you will never desert me.

Through birth and death, in this world
or in other, wherever you lead me, it is you
the same, the one companion of my endless life
linking the unfamiliar with a heart filled with joy.

When I know you, then, none I call alien
or,  with that gen, I find, no door is ever shut;
grant me ever, therefore, the bliss that comes
from the touch of that one in the play of many.

Adopted from Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem 63

Henry Victor          25.10.2012