In the evening to fill up my empty hours
Away from home and alone
I was reading a volume
Written by a scholar on poetics
And literary criticism
It teaches one what is beauty
What are poetry’s ingredients
Talks of Shelley, Goethe and Coleridge
Tells to what category each of them belongs
Reading it for quite a while
My head became heated
And my mind tired
It seemed
All these were sheer rubbish –
Poetic imagination, beauty,
Literary tastes and so on -
Were all inventions
Of some businessmen
Who live by the pen
To beguile their lazy time
A bunch of bookworms
Have been weaving for ages
In the empty void
A cobweb of words
To swing on.
At last being tired and feeling sleepy
I closed the tome,
Looked at my watch and found
It was midnight
Startled I put off the lights
As soon as the lights went out
A flood surged into my room
Through its open doors and windows
And fell on my breast and eyes
From all around
It was the flood of a sweet silent smile
That overflows the entire world.
O my Cutie, my darling, O full moon!
You are the very essence of what is eternal
Your mystery is endless
With your sweet ironic smile
In an instant
How you have swept away the cynic’s dry mind!
Like a maiden on a love tryst
At the corner with an eager heart
You were waiting by my door
Bringing a heavenly silence
Full of music
From the land of distant stars
Here in the corner of my room
I had lost my way
Fruitlessly wandering alone
In the deep jungle of words
Full of dry leaves
And paths marked by alphabets.
So long
You made your bewildered devotee
Reel about
Such are your deceptive tricks.
You overflow the whole world
With your immense treasure
And I wonder
How you kept yourself hidden
Behind the flickering flame of a small lamp
How a few meaningless words
Out of a book
Kept away your message
Silent and universal
From my spellbound ears.
