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My eyes are heavy with sleep
I wake up at times in its midst.
Like the first showers of rainy days
Reach the tree roots in drips
The light of this young autumn
Is reaching my sleeping mind.
The day has passed three quarters of its time.
Like the paper boats floated by a heavenly child
In the autumn sun float light white clouds.
A sharp wind is blowing from the west
It is swaying the branches of the tamarind tree.
The bullock carts are raising grey misty dusts
In the pale blue sky.
In the silent mid-day
On the raft of empty time
Drifts my lazy mind.
Like a boat without any mooring
This day is aimless, it has no purpose
Navigating through colourful waves
In the evening it will reach
The tranquil sea of sleep.
In the calendar this day is very lightly marked
This will soon disappear
It will form a blank among the thick-lettered dates.
Even the dry leaves that fall on the ground
Repay their debt to the soil
But the dry leaves of this my lazy day
Give nothing to anybody in return.
Yet it seems to me
Accepting is a form of giving back.
The elixir that continually drips through creation
I have accepted in my body and mind
It has coloured my life –
As it colours the corn fields, the woodlands
And the aimless autumn clouds –
Together they have filled the vast canvas of this universe.
A light suddenly flickers in my mind,
Touched by the warm breath of autumn
Shivers the moment when I am half-awake and half-asleep –
Have they not found also a harmonious place in that canvas?
In the assemblage of the beauties of the physical world
With the flutter of a banyan leaf
Also sparkles my causeless pleasure –
It may find no mention in history
But it will add a line to the artistry
That gives expression to this universe.
In my heart these beautiful moments are like lotus seeds
In the pageant of the seasons
They are being strung into a garland,
A garland of the joys of my life.
This insignificant day in the life of a lazy man
Will not leave a blank space –
Today also it will fill a place in that garland.
Last night I spent alone at this window.
The crescent moon hung over the woodlands.
The world was the same
But the maestro changed it
Adding the tune of a misty light.
The day to day world took leave of its business
Like a housewife after a busy day
Quietly takes her rest lying in the veranda
Spreading her sari-end.
It was not a time to remain absorbed in the mundane world
It was a time to listen to the fairy tales
Told under the starry sky.
The faint memory of my childhood days comes to my mind.
Gathering all the darkness of the night
Casting their shadows on the indistinct greeneries of the grass
The trees in rows stood still
In the daytime they served a purpose
They gave shelter to the cowherd, relief from the mid-day heat.
Now in this moonlit night they have no obligation;
Now they have sat together side by side
In the creation of some whimsical work
Like children they have become busy with their brush.
My wakeful mind of daytime has changed the scale of its instrument.
I have gone as if to another far away planet.
My deep feelings I have spread through all creation.
That moon, those stars and those trees -
They have become big, whole and one in my consciousness.
The whole world has found itself in my being –
This realization gives satisfaction to the lazy poet.
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