Krishna

Poem

A cool night of fresh dewed grass,
A new-faced moon hung on a shy sky,
Air like sweet breath of a beloved,
A languid mood hovered like bees,
Around, near honeyed boughs rich,
Thick with colour and heady perfume.
A screen of mists hung over meadows,
Like portals that lead to new heavens,
Or some Gandhurva lair of opulences,
And extravagance of splendid beauty.
The profuse coel only briefly broke silence,
To its beloved heart upon another branch.
A poignancy as if separated by long distances,
Love in bird-breast found few feet intolerable.
A rustle of leaves and jostling feet,
Deliberate upon grass, slow, patient,
Feet whose tread earth long awaited,
A form that seemed one with blue-black sky,
All of unspeakable love was in that form.
His single glance could be excess recompense,
For each sorrow and loss since time began.
Now trooped in the beloved Gopis,
Souls who communed with him eternally,
Over long cycles of time souls elected,
To his sweet haven to gods denied.
The warriors then, his battle arms,
That establish dharma of his Lila.
Seers trooped next, hearers of Truth,
Matted hair, eyes that glowed with tapas,
Wide foreheads and weather-worn wills,
They who extinguished their time-born portion,
To be his mind and limb of action in Time.
Then the commissioners of his works,
Hearts that conceived his beauty and glory,
And shaped adamant mountains to his form.
Then the greatest, his labouring arms,
They who shouldered the load of deeds,
By strained muscle and heated sweat,
Propped the spires of his temple towers.
To each he was theirs, one innumerable!
The Gopis heard the flute cradle their hearts,
Warriors remembered his aid in battles,
Enlisted themselves for his embrace and battles new.
Seers communed in silence the ages’ crisis,
Of aid due to men far below on earth,
And their perennial question, ‘Is it time?’, in response,
A smile that flung seers into rapturous silence.
To the conceiver of works heard their accounts,
Of deeds done and hardships endured, each cause
Received the salvè of his touch, he knew.
To his labouring limbs he sat beside
And lent his shoulder for their repose,
A wordless lullaby he hummed for their souls,
A repose before dawn, whey they must return to worlds.
In Vrindavan that night all was Krishna, all was well.