Hi, I'm Mahesh Ramakrishnan 👋

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O Sage

Poem

Of all that labours in the mortal fields
Thine is the lion’s share of burden O Sage,
Lugging bereavements of the prevailing age
Through deluded hopes of human moulds.

Woes like rivers pouring into thy calm,
An oceanic equanimity thou givest in return,
Thy surplus endurance these ills does spurn,
Shielding this pitiful earth from excess harm.

How dumbly besotted grew I to thy miracle,
Oh that countenance that marless poise thine,
And I wished, ‘Ah this, this stature to be mine!’,
Unaware of the dangers behind thy spectacle.

With what gaiety my ship bid glad goodbye
To dear human shores and most dearer faces
With heart sails unfurled over new inner seas
And only a wayward inner voice for company.

How many such voyages have been before,
For the unknown forsaking the known
Like a blind gambler to his gamble prone
Pitting his dice against the fates once more.

Counsel O Sage of this perilous course
Do the winds whisper proximate secrets,
Set our sails and rudder to favourable currents,
Or do the elements plot in mutinous silence?

They say we hear Him roar in the storm,
In the angry wave’s whiplash His argument,
Each whirl and vortex a dire experiment
On our straggling will and paltry form.

Is it thus O Sage this battle most unequal,
This moment’s bubble of a roaring wave
With hardly a term to fully joy and grieve,
To be pitched against the lone Immortal?

Aid us O Sage, we know not the subtle terms
Of the knowing soul’s current venturing,
Lend us all a clue for our remembering,
By soul’s victory may we offer our obeisance.

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The Merchant

Poem — Part 1

A merchant I once did come about
On fruitless tracks of the world’s circuit.
Tired of men and their wares
I slipped the chains of lesser snares,
Longing for reprieve my eye did see 
The merchant all calm and unwary.
Him I asked, “What wares are thine,
What craft of skilled hands fine
Do you offer under the azure sky?”,
He replied, “Many fires I ply
Of numerous hues rainbow bright,
But mine fires not palpable to sight
Nor burn by any known fuel,
For these enflame the soul
And not all shall afford the fee
For my fires that eyes cannot see.”
And I, “Oh to what purpose the fire then
That thou doth ply to world of men?”
Replied he, “Knoweth thou the dawn
That peers by bright-faced sun,
Or stars that prop the night’s canvas
Glimmering like god’s million eyes?
Knoweth thou the musing poet
Making new world by mere thought
Or trumpet that heralds the hero
Who wins by his blood a tomorrow?”
I queried, “Some of these familiar,
Yet what relevance these to thy fire?”
He said, “Behind the wings that sweep
And mind that into silence doth leap,
Behind the babe’s cry and lover’s sigh
There is a power hidden to every eye,
In the occult house within heart of all
A secret chamber with luminous pedestal,
There these fires are housed
To fuel all acts by life made.
The sage and clown,
The seer and hero of renown,
Hands that the soil do till
or rock the baby’s cradle,
All are made by fires mine,
Sans it no glory doth remain.”

(To be continued..)