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The Poetry of Seshendra...
My Country, My people, modern Indian epic
When I was in the seed, I heard a note.
Desire stirred in me to sprout and see the sun and sky.
To drink the nectar of wonder in silence I became the tree.
I became the dream of the tree in its branches which is to say,
I blended within me, the melody, the essence and the scent;
and became the flower.
Because it is only as a dream, that I can
comprehend the secrets hiding in me.
In the dream was revealed to me, that
earth, water and air are different forms of the same matter,
and that I, combine within me the ultimate content,
the quintessence of the three. Soon after
this realization, I became three-
Wore colourful wings. Became a butterfly
and ran after myself.
Dipped myself in the leaves and came out
as parrot and ate myself, the fruit,,
I became a fish, forgetting my shorelessness,
swam across waters for unknown shores...
I am a tree, all this is the journey of my life.
Autumn anoints yellow on my leaves,
wind removes my garments, mist sprinkles holy dew
over my nakedness; and I the tree like a king
after coronation confers imperial gifts of
cool shades to the scorched earth.
Day is flying its thoughts in the blue sky
turning them into pieces of white clouds.
Hazy breeze is breathing life into my limbs. And the fruit
hanging in the branches looks in wonder at the tree,
which is for ever flowing, dropping leaves and bearing new ones,
and again shedding them like a stream of life endlessly.
The fruit wonders about the secret of this tree!
It bathes in showers of leaves that come down
at the slightest touch of the wind, feeling the bliss and beauty
of the falling leaves....
May be , fruit is the seer, who went into depths of meditation,
to learn the inscrutable secret of life.
It sees life in death, otherwise how could
death be so beautiful, is its enigmatic question!
Even a thousand seasons of spring, cannot achieve the grandeur and
beauty of a single nude tree, which has renounced
all its leaves and flowers...
Oh, I am bathing in beauty,
I swoon in the storms of subtle and deep pains
which beauty inflicts on me.
O what a tree this this standing grandeur
where is its secret?-so thinks the fruit hanging to the tree.
It realises before it drops from the branch that
the seed of the tree is inside itself and that
the I of the fruit is no other than the I of the tree...
Seshendra
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