Inspirations
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Inspirations - The Galleria

 

Episodes

Poems by R Y Deshpande

 

Ishta

 

Heavens have I have known and glories of night

Discovered; I have followed the darkness

Deepening as if into a mystery

That gave birth to countless stars, lit a marvel

Bright like wisdom burning in the works of time.

I have felt from sudden exquisiteness

Of the infinite a rush of movements

Invading the worlds; ocean-streams of wonder

Carry legends of a new creation.

Gates of life have swung open in excellence

Of the original gods awaiting

Chant of the early priest, calm of the sage,

That a thousand worships be offered at morn

For the sun to incarnate in endless day.

Like a roaring flame born in a moment

Shorter than the wink of eternity

Whose swift glance allows even death to be

In a mood of another ascending thought,

My spirit’s ageless urge prevails everywhere.

On top of the breathing hill tall I stand.

O the strangeness in the bosom of night

Effecting guilt for the mortal to outgrow

Himself, the enchanted authority

Keeping under its spell our tenderly hopes!

Nothing of destiny holds back my vision

And no cramped circles can my paces curb;

An image of the far-away enters

In a leap into my vigilant sight

As though lifted was curtain of the fading

Past, needed to exist no more. None can now

Arrest the flight of these exceeding birds

To tranquil skies of truth’s abidingness.

As sweet as infancy that is dew-fresh

But bearing the will of the fire kindled

On the altar of the Being, surprised

Beauty awakes in the heart of delight.

Pratima

On the banks of the swift stream stood a mansion

With spacious rooms; the prayer-hall was filled

With incense made from gums of sacred trees

And the soft tranquil breeze carried fragrance

To bowers of warm reverie. A strange

Flutter brought intimate notes to silence

In which live songs. I looked around and saw

A new god running down the hill bespelled

By the grassland and the garden that grew

Like imagination of an artist

Disclosing the secrets of things to be.

Colours were adazzle in his dream

And to the waking sky time had taken

Rapid wings in bright purple and orange

Of the early hour. Voices of eager

Intuition drew nearer and chirping

Quickened the occult’s mood. From realms of sleep

Came metaphors of deathlessness and turned

Grief and anguish into hymns of the morn.

I even wondered if the ideal

Could be the real when youth had not tasted

The joy of love, rose plant smiled in beauty,

And the stars brought out twinkles of the night;

But the mansion by the swift stream at once

Became aware of an invisible

Presence, felt words are timeless, that wisdom

Is the true cause of all this existence.

Nothing seemed to matter in that greatness,

Nor life nor mortal dread, the phantom thought,

Nothing that we dearly prize, except

The demiurge of the spirit. Amazed

Then the god climbed down the eleventh step

And as the door opened unexpectedly

An optimist vision spread everywhere.

I knew someone wished to grow in the house

Built by the swift stream whose course is delight.