Poems Of India - XXVII

Before

the grey reaches the cheek,

the wrinkle the rounded chin

and the body becomes a cage of bones:

before

with fallen teeth

and bent back

you are someone else's ward:

before.

you drop your hand to the knee

and clutch a staff:

before

age corrodes

your form:

before

death touches you:

worship

our lord

of the meeting rivers!

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

When a whore with a child

takes on a customer for money,

neither child. nor lecher

will get enough of her.

She'll go pat the child once,

then go lie with the man once,

neither here nor there.

Love of money is relentless,

my lord of the meeting rivers.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXVI

I went to fornicate,

but all I got was counterfeit.

I went behind a ruined wall,

but scorpions stung me.

The watchman who heard my screams

just peeled off my clothes.

I went home in shame,

my husband raised weals on my back.

All the rest, O lord of the meeting rivers,

the king took for his fines.

to fate.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Looking for your light,

I went out:

it was like the sudden dawn

of a million million suns,

a ganglion of lightnings

for my wonder.

O Lord of Caves,

if you are light,

there can be no metaphor.

--ALLAMA PRABHU [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXV

You went riding elephants.

You went riding horses.

You covered yourself

with vermilion and musk.

O brother,

but you went without the truth.

you went without sowing and reaping

the good.

Riding rutting elephants

of pride, you turned easy target

to fate.

You went without knowing

our lord of the meeting rivers.

You qualified for hell.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

A fire

in every act and look and word.

Between man and wife

a fire.

In the plate of food

eaten after much waiting

a fire.

In the loss of gain

a fire.

And in the infatuation

of coupling

a fire.

You have given us

five fires

and poured dirt in our mouths

O Ramanatha.

--DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXIV

Make of my body the beam of a lute

of my head the sounding gourd

of my nerves the strings

of my fingers the plucking rods.

Clutch me close

and play your thirty-two songs

O lord of the meeting rivers !

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Whatever It was

that made this earth

the base,

the world its life,

the wind its pillar,

arranged the lotus and the moon,

and covered it all with folds

of sky

with Itself inside,

to that Mystery

indifferent to differences,

to It I pray,

O Ramanatha

--DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXIII

People,

male and female,

blush when a cloth covering their shame

comes loose.

When the lord of lives

lives drowned without a face

in the world, how can you be modest?

When all the world is the eye of the lord,

onlooking everywhere, what can you

cover and conceal?

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Look here, dear fellow:

I wear these men's clothes

only for you.

Sometimes I am man.

sometimes I am woman.

O' lord of the meeting rivers

I'll make war for you

but I'll be your devotees' bride.

 

-- Basavanna [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXII

You can confiscate
money in hand;
can you confiscate
the body's glory?

 
Or peel away every strip
you wear,
but can you peel
the Nothing, the Nakedness
that covers and veils?

 
To the shameless girl
wearing the White Jasmine Lord's
light of morning,
you fool,
where's the need for cover and jewel?

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

The world tires itself thinking
it has buried all shadow.

Can shadows die
for limbed animals?

If you rage and curse here
at the thief out there
on the other shore,
will he just drop dead?

These men, they do not know
the secret,
the stitches of feeling;
would our Lord of Caves
come alive
just because they wish it?

 

-- Allama Prabhu [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XXI

  

Like a silkworm weaving
her house with love
from her marrow,
    and dying
in her body's threads
winding tight, round
and round,

    I burn
desiring what the heart desires.

Cut through. O lord,
my heart's greed,
and show me
your way out,

O lord white as jasmine.

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

How can I feel right
    about a god who eats up lacquer and melts,
    who wilts when he sees fire?

How can I feel right
    about gods you sell in your need,
    
    and gods you bury for fear of thieves?

The lord of the meeting rivers,
self-born, one with himself;

he alone is the true god.

 

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XX

  

Winnow, winnow!

Look here, fellows

winnow when the wind blows.

Remember, the winds

are not in your hands,

Remember, you cannot say

I'll winnow, I'll winnow

tomorrow.

When the winds of the Lord's grace

lash,

quickly, quickly winnow, winnow,

said our Chowdaiah of the Ferrymen.*

*Grace can not be called, recalled, or commanded. Be prepared to catch It as It passes.

--CHOWDAIAH OF THE FERRYMEN [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

See-saw watermills bow their heads.

So what?

Do they get to be devotees

to the Master?

The tongs join hands.

So what?

Can they be humble in service

to the Lord?

Parrots recite.

So what?

Can they read the Lord?

How can the slaves of the Bodiless God,

Desire,

know the way

our Lord's Men move

or the stance of their standing?*

*a rejection of orthodox ritual genuflections & recitations

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XIX

 

Did the breath of the mistress
have breasts and long hair?

Or did the master's breath
wear sacred thread?

Did the outcaste, last in line,
hold with his outgoing breath
the stick of his tribe?

What do the fools of this world know
of the snares you set,

0 Ramanatha?

-- DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

The sacrificial lamb brought for the festival
ate up the green leaf brought for the decorations.

Not knowing a thing about the kill,
it wants only to fill its belly:
born that day, to die that day.

But tell me:
    did the killers survive,

0 lord of the meeting rivers?

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XVIII

 

The eating bowl is not one bronze
and the looking glass another.

Bowl and mirror are one metal.
Giving back light
one becomes a mirror.

Aware, one is the Lord's;
unaware, a mere human.

Worship the lord without forgetting,
the lord of the meeting rivers.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

 

You can confiscate
money in hand;
can you confiscate
the body's glory?

Or peel away every strip
you wear,
but can you peel
the Nothing, the Nakedness
that covers and veils?

To the shameless girl
wearing the White Jasmine Lord's
light of morning,
you fool,
where's the need for cover and jewel?

 

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XVII

The pot is a god. The winnowing
fan is a god. The stone in the
street is a god. The comb is a
god. The bowstring is also a
god. The bushel is a god and the
spouted cup is a god.

Gods, gods, there are so many
there's no place left
for a foot.

There is only
one god. He is our Lord
of the Meeting Rivers.

******* 

 
He'll grind till you're fine and small.
He'll file till your colour shows.

If your grain grows fine
in the grinding,
if you show colour.
in the filing,

then our lord of the meeting rivers
will love you
and look after you.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 

Poems Of India - XVI

Who cares

    who strips a tree of leaf

    once the fruit is plucked?

Who cares

    who lies with the woman

    you have left?

Who cares

    who ploughs the land

    you have abandoned?

After this body has known my lord

    who cares if it feeds

    a dog

    or soaks up water?

   
-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XV

Outside city limits
a temple.
In the temple, look,
a hermit woman.

In the woman's hand
a needle,
at needle's end
the fourteen worlds.

0 Lord of Caves,
I saw an ant
devour whole
the woman, the needle,
the fourteen worlds.*

*The city-limits symbolize the physical limits of the body. The temple, the inner mental form. The power of knowledge, is the hermit-woman, holding the mind (needle) on which are balanced the fourteen worlds. When the great enlightenment begins (the ant), it devours all these distinctions.

-- ALLAMA PRABHU [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XIV

Look here,
the legs are two wheels;
the body is a wagon
full of things.

Five men* drive
the wagon
and one man is not
like another.

Unless you ride it
in full knowledge of its ways
the axle
will break,

0 Lord of Caves. 

* five men refers here to the body's five senses.. 

-- ALLAMA PRABHU [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

 **********

A running river
is all legs.

A burning fire
is mouths all over.

A blowing breeze
is all hands.

So, lord of the caves,
for your men,
every limb is Symbol.

-- ALLAMA PRABHU [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XIII

Would a circling surface vulture
know such depths of sky
as the moon would know?

would a weed on the riverbank
know such depths of water
as the lotus would know?

would a fly darting nearby
know the smell of flowers
as the bee would know?

0 lord white as jasmine
only you would know
the way of your devotees:

how would these,
these
mosquitoes
on the buffalo's hide?

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XII

He'll grind till you're fine and small.
He'll file till your colour shows.

If your grain grows fine
in the grinding,
if you show colour.
in the filing,

then our lord of the meeting rivers
will love you
and look after you.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

***********************
 

The eating bowl is not one bronze
and the looking glass another.

Bowl and mirror are one metal.
Giving back light
one becomes a mirror.

Aware, one is the Lord's;
unaware, a mere human.

Worship the lord without forgetting,
the lord of the meeting rivers.

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - XI

A snake-charmer and his nose-less wife,
snake in hand, walk carefully
trying to read omens
for a son's wedding,

but they meet head-on
a nose-less woman
and her snake-charming husband,
and cry 'The omens are bad!

His own wife has no nose;
there's a snake in his hand.
What shall I call such fools
who do not know themselves

and see only the others,

0 lord of the meeting rivers!

-- BASAVAŅŅA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - X

To the utterly at-one with Shiva
there's no dawn,
no new moon,
no noonday,
nor equinoxes,
nor sunsets,
nor full moons;

his front yard
is the true Benares,

O Ramanatha.

-- DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

A rejection of ritualism, of sacred days and of sacred months and of scared places.

Poems Of India - IX

Not one, not two, not three or four,
but through eighty-four hundred thousand's vaginas*
have I come,

I have come
through unlikely worlds,
guzzled on
pleasure and on pain.

Whatever be
all previous lives,
show me mercy
this one day,

0 lord
white as jasmine.

* The belief that the soul will go through eighty four hundred thousand rebirths in many forms of living beings before being born again as a human.

-- Akka Mahādēvi [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]

Poems Of India - VIII

A man filled grain
in a tattered sack
and walked all night
fearing the toll-gates

but the grain went through the tatters
and all he got was the gunny sack.

It is thus
with the devotion
of the faint-hearted

****

Can the wind bring out
and publish for others
the fragrance
in the little bud?

Can even begetters, father and mother,
display for onlooker's eyes
the future breast and flowing hair
in the little girl
about to be bride?

Only ripeness
can show consequence,

O Ramanatha.

--DĒVARA DĀSIMAYYA [Translated by A. K. Ramanujan in the book - Speaking of Siva]