These poems are the personal property of Ravindra. Any use of theirs requires his prior permission, which cannot be sought through e-mail.
FULL BLOOM THEY HAD
Full bloom they had in my childhood-
the trees that grew in my backyard.
The last one was planted
by my father
when I was five years old.
Life has gone ahead—
wrinkles have given me the look of my father
when he became a grandfather.
Yes I too am a grandfather now.
The trees smile
and say: Well, child! why worry !
we shall live on
and in us you shall live as has lived
your grandfather
then your father.
We are the time that moves on.
Here in our sap lies the godly presence.
Be a tree
and see the miracle of life.
- 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 BIRTH OF URVASHI *
It happened
in a south Indian breeze –
we call it Malay in our native parlance.
It at once connotes
the gust of romance
and joy and beauty
and the rosey-eyed Eros-
the sweet-winged paramour of desire.
I stood in my non-challance- a very epitome of desire
like the mythical god of love-
there direct under the shadow
of an epic presence.
There blew a breeze
from the early morning sun, playing cadence
with the flow of an over-eager current,
calling an old demon
in a matchless dancing sea;
their hymns of watery parlance
declaring earth
an ever-alive glory;
limbs matching limbs
conveyed a new meaning to the sky,
dawning in that ethereal moment.
As if direct from the epic,
embossed on the neighbouring ancient stones,
she stepped out
like a wish unfulfilled
of many-many births
come alive,
almost like a song,
a lyrical voice,
a sound eternal
that had reverberated
in the corridors of aeons.
I gasped for breath –
the breeze was so sweet,
filling the incrporeal senses
of the trees around.
She headed from the waves
and I saw
where the hem of the river
was lightly resting
against the sea’s fluid front.
She lifted her one step and below there
leaped the desire of the wave;
pearls scattered
near it on the sand;
then another step
and from beneath the sky-line
a lotus-
an ethereal fragrance-
issued forth
and gods of beauty, love, power and joy
surrounding it
sang in one solid hallelujah
the birth of the sweet Urvashi.
Among the stones
a light traversed
and each corner,
each crevice among the rocks
fluttered with a joyful soul;
there came peacock throbs
and quivers of a flower-bow,
seeding desire
in God’s abundance.
* Urvashi is an Apsara, a goddess-fairy in Indian mythology
- R.K. Raizada
AND BUDDHA WOKE UP
And Buddha woke up –
It was still dark.
Life was still like a dormant pool.
He remembered the night.
There were a thousand sights lurking in the dark.
The tunnel was wide and mysterious—
Crowded it was with
shapes known and unknown.
There was the figure of father, mighty and weak;
the mother, a distant dream;
the pretty Yashodhara, asleep-
looking wane and pale;
the little just-born baby boy,
lost in his own dream-world—
all these and many others,
whom he had known in the crowd of experiences—
the street urchin
who looked agape with wide blue eyes
at his princely procession—its rich glory
that he could not understand.
Perhaps life was hard for the little boy—
working with his parents in some distant field
or, may be, working as
a menial hand in the royal kitchen.
Life is so hard—now he knows.
he also remembered the old man
whom he saw only once,
limping along the street on his bony frame;
then the cortege going towards the cremation ghat.
All this was a passing show—
now distant and unreal.
Buddha woke up and knew
that life goes on
and leaves behind a nothing.
Pain and suffering are real and yet unreal—
they bind you not.
One must see them and be aloof.
The long night had passed.
The day was beaming out from inside.
And Buddha knew
He was awake.
- R.K.Raizada
HERE IN MY LITLLE GARDEN
Here in my little garden
a little bird moves along,
frisking among the branches of the Champak tree.
In the morning sun it looks golden,
But as the sun declines to the west
It looks darker till it merges
Into the green of the tree.
In the twilight of the setting sun
It emerges out and sings a melancholy note.
And when the night falls,
It flies up and merges among the stars.
I remember my mother,
Who died last year.
- R.K.Raizada
WELL, I WISH I COULD
Now is the time to sleep.
Well, I wish I could!
But the poet in me is a night-monger.
He wakes up when the world sleeps.
Poor me!
I know not how to cope with this ever-insistent
Poet’s insistent vision.
-R.K.Raizada
YESTERDAY I PUT
Yesterday
I put my pen on the desk.
Today when I took it to write a poem
it behaved in a funny manner-
it refused to write.
My mind was aglow with words
but the pen frustrated me.
I struggled with it in vain-
the pen had become a machine
and no more my companion
who took to poetry
as naturally as does a fish to water.
It had lost its soul.
- R.K.Raizada
AND THE BIRD FLEW
And the bird flew quietly
in the sky.
She knew not
how the metallic little satellite
went by her ,
rattling beyond her horizons
into the black womb of the skies,
there to find a new earth.
The bird in the sky can breathe
And playfully glide upon her wings
or be still at will.
The spaceship like a meteor
passes her by unnoticed.
The sky is air and life for the bird.
The spaceship knows not this
and goes hurtling around.
The bird looks askance at its mad fury.
Quietness in the sky is the bird’s home,
but the metallic bird knows not this
and roars.
- R.K.Raizada
AND THEY…
And they ….
the beauties, all raw youthful
stood in the artificial twilight
of a pre-dawn celebration
with eager joy pulsating
in their breathless veins.
Throbbing of moments in a heartless time
glistened up and down the flood-lit stage.
Here was a world
created out of the commonplace
to celebrate the pageant of nothingness-
a vain beauty
In a couple of hours’ wonderland.
Among the cobwebs of lanes,
as one crossed the streams of limousines,
there stood an orphan girl…
shivering in her nakedness.
The wild ecstasy reverberated from the pageant,
reaching unto her.
Poor girl!
She knew not--
as also the ancient banyan near the crossing--
that beauty could be such a grand show.
- R.K.Raizada
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