Come lie with me beneath the mountain –
Lion, lamb, man on the street –
Take up my rags, give voice to rebellion,
Caress the fallen leaf.
Take no refuge when the storm begins.
Heed no clarion call.—
The battle is our own with ourselves,
With all the selves we have been.
Kiss me beneath the willow –
Your tenderness is your own salvation.
I will be the light in the tempest,
The pause beneath the rock.
The listening apparatus
Is silent –
Ahead of sound –
Your eyes gush
Like awakened
Blake.
From: kolkata, west bengal, India
About me: What would I be saying If I said, ‘The sky is true’? Would the dream pass more slowly If I lowered my voice, bassooned my vowels? No end to wonder, I find, And the evening mist is still. I talk in allegory when I speak to myself. I walk up the hill – my spirits rise. The process ‘saying’ again Is always about itself, about something Other than its content Its statement and assertion. I reach with every word For the truth of what I find— I miss and then I say something else. The reader, myself included, Gets only the altered after-saying. Where is the sky in all this--? The measure wavers – the link is broken – Disturbed, a trial of what is, Wanders, palpitates, grows worn In its youth— Like a design by William Morris Or brothel in Joyce’s arcane language.
