Blake's "To see a world..."

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song 
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night. 

-- William Blake

I want to be free of these clouds.
They rain and they dry up,
then I am parched.

I want to be free of clouds,
free of their their playful colours
and their fluffy lightness in the air.

I want a sky empty of shapes. I want
the stillness of lasting night, I want
to be lost amongst quiet stars.

A beautiful truth

"This is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering."

-- Gautama Buddha


"Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

-- John Keats

More metaphors of light

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.

[Virasaiva saint Allama Prabhu, translated by A.K. Ramanujan]

Tejaswini Niranjana's political critique apart, this is a striking translation that captures the sheer spirit of an inspired moment.

The drop hangs
from the tip of the leaf
lit transparent gold.

The note hovers there,
fills deep as easy as light.
This moment is all.

Song in Des

one moment of flute song,
of fathomless nothing and all of all,
why doesn't it stay
with me forever?

dance on my feet as I walk,
sing in me as I laugh,
sooth the storms that consume me,
slip into silence as I sleep --

one moment of flute song
returning as suddenly as it stops,
fathomless nothing and all of all,
everywhere here and everything now.

I sing myself, I celebrate myself

For the love of the skies,
the louring clouds,
starlit nights and lunar rings

For the love of mellow winds,
and swirling storms,
for sunny noons and alluring dusks,

For the love of silent singing things
and the smell of distant lands,
can I not break these tenuous bonds,
can I not grow so many wings?