Small Poems And Echoes Poem by Ananta Madhavan

1
A poet among us,
Moved by the sunset,
Sees in his fancy
A molten sun that smears the sky.
Who are we, prose folk,
To rob him of illusions?

2
What is this night
Of sleep and dreaming time?
Whence all these stars
And the reminding moon?
The wise are silent.

Was there a time of neither day nor night.
Who knows?
Was there a time before the Dawn of Time,
Who knows?
Was there a time when there was only 'Is',
Who knows?

3
I rose at dawn,
The morning around my shoulders,
A new garment, cool and scented;
And when I touch the river
I throb with the pulse of water,
I learn with the weight of water,
And I take the might of water
In the spoon of my body,
Which I dedicate
To this day.

4
An old man, drooling in half-sleep,
Hoods his eyes from the young sunlight.
This is a beckoning land.
The women, swaying like serpents,
Come homeward from the swelling river.
This is a beckoning land.
The children run to the banyan tree
And make it a magic palace.
This is a beckoning land.

5
This cloth, this wooden plough,
This tumbler wrought in burnished brass,
These are things I know by touch,
As I seek to know by warmer touch
The woman at my side.
Petals of lotus, petals of fire.
What is the divining touch
To probe the Night?

6

Albert Einstein may have speculated
That God does not play dice with the cosmos.
As a boy, I heard thunder, 'Hark, do you? '
I did wonder if gods were rolling dice.
'Chance and Necessity': a book to read again.

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