A midnight assertion
took me to many yesterdays
the loving turning and re-turning of pages
the rolling of words on a mind-tip
and an evening of finality,
that moment
when Seeress asked and the Master replied
and where at the exhaustion of query
even after blessedness was acknowledged
two questions had arrived and in arrival were answered:
“Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?”
I re-read the prophetic prescription
the nutshell version
of the book “All about love”
and, in the manner of our days,
pressed ‘ctrl F’;
I called for “illicit”
and then
in seerish presumption
from that unyielding text requested,
“And what of the licit, Master?”
There arose
from the flame-tip
of an oil lamp
lit in a long forgotten temple
the softest silence
and which, bathed
in timeless luminosity
decreed:
‘transliterate!”
And so in crippled tongue
this I am compelled to say:
It is no sin
to name the undefined
but we desist
on account of vulgarity;
the beloved is nameless
and therefore variously named;
the question of propriety
is a verse on moonlight
so why write about luminosity
when to let it clothe
is verse enough?
Oh! Beloved!
I’ve digressed
so let me
to the country of love
return.
