English Poems of Ravindra

The poems published on this blog are the personal property of Ravindra Kumar Raizada alias Kumar Ravindra. Please contact him on e-mail for any kind of use of these poems. 

THE EARTH LIVES HERE                                                                       

The earth lives here unknown.

No man lives here.

Here are the hills and the yonder sky

the unnamed wilderness and a divinity unexplored

trees dancing in the winds

and the birds singing hallelujah;

The stars of midnight join their chorus and shower their blessings.

I wish I were a star, a bird, a tree, a hill

and live here unnamed, unknown

and be this earth!   

                          - R.K.Raizada

         

         THE SKY IS DIM

The sky is dim, dark and sultry

distributed by static stars;

none dares to move;

all the stars are highly stable;

the commanding finger of light awaits

an event- a birth;

but the stars are unobliging.

Three ancient faces

six young eyes

and twelve tired feet

face the desert

for the signal of an unfulfilled  dream.

Memories of an ancient journey

that took them to a birth

among the cattle, are troublesome.

The grotto and the stable are empty.

Three shadows await the signal of life;

three other shadows of trees

in a dark tempest

appear across the horizon

upon a lonely knoll

still awaiting a long sought resurrection.  

                            -R.K.Raizada

       

         HERE IN THE WILDERNESS

Here in the wilderness

of the space-city they sit alone -

the gods from the forsaken earth.

To them has been given the charge of

keeping a watch over the stars

created once upon a time

by a so-called almighty god –

for centuries

priests had talked about him ad nauseam.

That god was long ago buried

under the debris of the fallen temples.

Now these new gods are sent

into space by their

creator man –

among the stars they sit on guard

alert and aloof.

The space-ships come and go

and among the stars

men from the earth come for picnicing every day.

Upon the earth life is the same

as it was in the twentieth century A.D.

People hungry and in tatters still live there

labouring for the rich.

The new civilization is agog with success.

                           - R.K.Raizada

GOD LIVES RIGHT HERE

God lives right here--

in the little birdie’s nest on the Champak tree.

Here I hear the chirping all day long—

the father bringing food from distant farms

the mother feeding the newly-borns

the young ones

thronging around the mother 

and chirruping for food

the mother cajoling and scolding them

the father telling them to move along

and learn to open their wings.

Yes, the sweet little drama of life

goes on incessantly.

God smiles here.

I wish I could become a part of

The little birdie’s family

and learn

how to see God smile.

                        - R.K.Raizada

THE NON-DESCRIPT BONE

Yes, it was waiting for me –

the little non-descript bone –

for aeons.

All these centuries

it lay on the sands

shifted along

by the indiscriminate shufflings of the waves

on that unknown beach.

Life had flowed by:

tourists came and went by;

the native fishermen too

had left it unravished – undesired.

Little it had to recommend itself

to the ravishing eye of man.

Poor thing –

it waited and waited and waited

till the advent of

my foot-steps on the neglected spot.

I had reached there unsolicited

knowing not its urgent call

echoing in the corridors of my bones.

My steps –

one, two, three and more-

did not know the direction.

And yet

the little thing from the past

was fully awake with longing

accumulated down its aged waking.

And then

it came to me all of asudden-

aye, abruptly to my soul.

My toe was touched to the quick

with a thrill of recogniton.

And my soul immediately knew it-

this my own long-forgotten self

waiting through the unknown times

down to the moment.

How could it be otherwise ?

                        - R.K.Raizada

LET THE EARTH SPEAK OUT 

And now

let the earth speak out

through its sub-soil presences –

the cadence of bubbling waters,

sbmerged in its womb;

the rocks rubbed round

In a subterranean stream;

the bare earthy touches of lifelessness

which non-challantly stare around

for silences;

the fiery lappings of the entrapped winds;

and the whisperings

that we humans cannot hear

in the midst of

our supercilious noises.

The depths have silences that speak

even where noises run amok around.

Our thoughts sometimes arise

from such depths;

then the speech of the earth

reverberates inaudibly

inside us.

May this be the end !

May this be the end of all our seachings,

aye, all our hankerings !

Then memory shall not speak to to us

and we shall hear

what we cannot hear.                                  

                        - R.K.Raizada