Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The summer bird


Summer bird I beseech thee
teach me a song as free as thee
lend my thoughts your wings, your sky
make my words light and spry

Colour my soul with your sight
mango blossoms and a sun so bright
Fill it brimming with a thousand blooms
of colours and light and sweet perfumes

Lead me through summer's lust
through heat and breeze and swirling dust
Tell me what secrets spake
the pigeon cooing to his mate

Hide my mind in a jasmine's breast
drown my heart in manna blest
Take me deep into her cove
take me into her sceret grove

Show me there her throbbing soul
Sloping valleys and sylvan knoll
Show me there in that single flower
A thousand blooms that live forever

Take me then on a butterfly's lips
humming through a hundred trips
to roses, violets and others untame
a thousand hearts for us to claim

Rest me awhile on a blade
of grass asleep in banyan shade
A dreamy sleep of sweat and heat
drinking noon sun's passion sweet

Carry me then on a sunbeam bent
to some sweet land with pastoral scent
of placid cows and cowherd's song
where evenings stretch languorously long

Fold your wings and sit by me
as dusk dies softly by a tree
Teach me silence that your heart holds
as the orange glow gently unfolds

Then take me home to a sylvan hutch
half asleep in the full moon's touch
Lay me there on simple earth
and let me sleep a sleep of death

4 comments:

  1. "Carry me then on a sunbeam bent.."

    Lovely image.. Very idyllic.. Very 'you'. And yes, Nature is the best teacher when it comes to silence..

    Also, the post is very colourful, so typical of the Holi season! Gues festivals also become instinctive when you're one with the flowers and earth and sky and rain..

    :)

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  2. Truly a beautiful poem! It has been a while since I read something as delightful as this. Wonderful piece (definitely after the 1st stanza), Agni, and thanks for sharing it...

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  3. A perfect poem. Every line is beautiful; the rhythm and rhyme are such a relief from the lack thereof in Emily Dickinson's nevertheless-delicate poems that I am reading nowadays.

    'Carry me then on a sunbeam bent' is highly inspired purest poetry.

    A perfect example of a classic.

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