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(For all the frightened but great warriors)
Walk me over blazing fires
And I will touch the loess of stars,
I will reach into the throbbing galaxies
To find the secrets of my being,
To let you know like Anselm
That faith precedes understanding,
I will never hesitate to go into the ultimate
To rediscover the many births,
Those inter-connected webs
That once touched my being
Like the skins of fluent butterflies
In a chiaroscuro of collapsing time,
And in the process I would find
With the power of the intellect
Objective nature and specific virtues
Of so many truths hanging like berries
Sucked by numerous others
Who once were mine,
Even if you walk me through
The biblical valley of the shadow of death
I shall fear no evil
For I have known the shaft of light
That intersects the last shadow of memory
Penetrating obscure regions of the unknown,
I have sculpted words on stone tablets
And resolved questions of dialectic
In medieval theology and philosophy
And undone what has already happened
By imagining new narratives,
New metaphysics of the being,
I am not sure if I can stand up like Autrecourt
And identify two kinds of certitudes
The one of faith and the other of evidence
Or assert that the existence of one thing
Cannot force us to infer
The existence of another thing,
But I can make no assertion into truth
My relativism is profound,
I have known those occasional drowning,
Those small friendships with frogs, fish and crocs
In the fathomless Ganga
Those minute mokshas tinged by sunlight or lamplight
I have ascended upon the rising clouds
Beyond the Himalayas
Into the kingdoms of the lunar nights
Where the eternal heavens thunder,
I have left the world in darkness
And returned to it in light,
And like Arjun I have been fearfully steadfast
In the study of the Vedas,
I have done all those things
That the Gita had exhorted me to do—
Sacrifice, austerity and charity—
I have tried to follow my dharma,
I have removed the dust from the world
Like a film of thoughtless attachment,
I have removed delusion from my mind
And I have gained the clarity to see
I have no doubt as I stand before you
That I shall do as you command. |
