Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2024.
Prayers from The Book of Dawn, poems by Randhir Khare.
1.
I had walked the broken path of uncertainty all these years, clutching my spirit in a fist lest I should lose it. Slept beside abandoned shrines under ancient trees speaking in languages I did not understand, my spirit as my pillow. In the morning when the world awoke, I washed with cool water from my spirit flask, drank my fill then walked the broken path.
This morning, I have reached the region of light with an empty flask; waiting for it to be filled with your grace Dear One – that I may rise anew, feathers growing, lifting me among the angels of the air, drunk with song.
2.
I know the rains are on their way in baskets of clouds full to the brim with thunder lilies and the wild fragrance of water. I know.
I know my nights will sing with the voices of restless birds and leaves snapped from their moorings rocked on the muddy wind, sailing to somewhere. I know.
I know the dawn will be a dark wet sheet torn by lightening and the cold fingers of the air will blow into me, travelling down the highways of my body, my roads lined with homes, dust bins and closed shops, dislodged hoardings and street dogs under cars. My nameless lanes crooked and broken, my temples weary with waiting. I know.
I know you will arrive suddenly one night amidst the storm and fill my dreams with a green dawn still with trees and speak to me. I know.
I know after the rains the drunken earth breathes like a lover touched beyond divine madness. I know
3.
You are everywhere this morning…in the sky turning pale milk, in birdsong, in the trembling leaves of this Raintree, in the bark of free dogs, early risers, milkmen and train hoots, in the croak of the jungle crow and the sound of my heartbeat, in the streetlights that die suddenly, the rats that rummage in dustbins, in everything that is and was.
Your presence stays with my secrets, my shame, my joy, my love, my loneliness; you are in the eyes of strangers on the streets, the woman with a baby tapping on the window pane of my car reminding me that I am not safe inside and in the flight of morning birds and sleeping moths speckled with shade;
You know my thoughts before they come to me, when they are embryo, you know;
I am laid bare before you Divine One – like a sand strip before the ocean, like roots in the earth, like stardust floating in the everythingness of the cosmos.
What can I say to you this morning that you do not know?
The wind brings the distant fragrance of feathers calling me to faraway places within myself where you reside.
Bless me with the joy of the explorer when he finds a pathway to the centre of the earth.
Bless me.
4.
The sky has opened itself to egrets and jungle crows, each to their own rhythms of being and purpose. I watch them harness the wind and float horizon to horizon – above my smallness that rummages among leftover dreams and promises, unable to soar. No feathers, no place to go, moving in circles, my soles burning a groove of everydayness, sameness, no wonder of lofting with the wind under my wings.
Release me from myself, Blessed One, so I’ll be free, open, accepting, loving, grateful, flying on wings of trust.
I’ve been with the earth too much, too long, I’ve sent out roots, held on to pettiness, small dreams of wanting, hoping, wishing, not riding the winds of freedom.
Tear away my roots, loft me through today that I may earn the gift of nowhereness drawn by the magnet of your power, so gentle, so giving, nurturing.
Between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun, carry me on your palm among the egrets and jungle crows. Show me the path to the centre of myself, the space of no-ness, nothingness.
5.
Below the green earth, below our feet, below the streets and cars and factories, below our love, below our hate, our wars, our marriages and births, below our ash strewn rivers, below all that is alive and dead and waiting to be born – are the roots of trees, wandering, breathing, from space to space, holding the earth together in their arms.
We come from them, we go to them, full with their blood. They are with us and join us, body to body into one.
And you, Mother, hold us inside you, protecting us.
Through the membranes of your womb the sky seeps in – filled with the joy of being.
Praise dawn, praise our new selves today, our preciousness that you’ve made above-below the earth that we stay one though separately unique.
The day with gleaming scales swims through the air, fins swirling.
Great Mother of infinity, we greet your day, turn rainbows in gratitude
6.
Good morning life. I am grateful for all that you have gifted me; my palms unfisted to give and to receive, my arms spread to embrace, love flowing from you to me and me to you;
You feel me and I feel you, you are me and I am you. I am the spider and the newborn snake, I am the otter playing in its delight, the caterpillar waiting to become, the unfolding leaf, even the rainbow in puddles on broken pavements. You’ve taught me to be always ready for death, making each living moment precious.
I praise this morning with its grey rooftop of clouds trickling rain, growing seeds into plants, into trees, into forests, birthing springs and rivers, you share your home with the great tribe of homeless beings, the lost and the unloved.
Praise be this home for all, this haven in a world at war with itself, this hope, this blessing of acceptance, of agreement of peace.
Teach me to always be aware in my journey of light and love as I move from life to light to life to…..
7.
I have gone beyond words and silence into pure feeling as We have gone beyond words and silence into pure feeling as the dark dissolves leaving faint traces on my skin – maps of forgotten continents once alive with dream-memories we had inhabited.
All is pure sensation now as maps fray their edges, coastlines melt into empty spaces, shrinking, till all that remains are islands of waiting.
The day hangs like a suspended canopy, bullet-torn, lipstick marked, scribbled with crayons, damp with longing, water-coloured with forgotten secrets.
Roots turn upwards and emerge with earth secrets.
We have gone beyond silence and words into realms of pure feeling where you are, Blessed One, a lotus, your roots in the fragrance of nothingness.
The canopy tatters and light pours in. The day swirls on.
Dark dissolves leaving faint traces on my skin – maps of forgotten continents once alive with dream-memories we had inhabited.
All is pure sensation now as maps fray their edges, coastlines melt into empty spaces, shrinking, till all that remains are islands of waiting.
The day hangs like a suspended canopy, bullet-torn, lipstick marked, scribbled with crayons, damp with longing, water-coloured with forgotten secrets.
Roots turn upwards and emerge with earth secrets.
We have gone beyond silence and words into realms of pure feeling where you are, Blessed One, a lotus, your roots in the fragrance of nothingness.
The canopy tatters and light pours in. The day swirls on.
© Randhir Khare
Randhir Khare is a national and international award-winning poet, writer, artist, playwright, teacher and folklorist. He has published 40 volumes of short fiction, poetry, novels, essays, and translations, exhibited his drawings and paintings in 7 solo exhibitions, led 2 poetry-music bands (Mystic & After Rumi) , and performed and read his work in national and international festivals. He has collaborated with A.R.Rahman who has set his poems to music.
His two recent books are THE FLOOD & AFTER A Memoir of Leaving and a novel – WOLF, END TIME which explores the role of shamans from traditional communities in the preservation of sacred spaces in wildernesses. Both the books have been published by Vishwakarma Publications. As a Mentor he has groomed numerous children, young adults and adults to grow into writers, artists and story-tellers. He is the winner of the Gold Medal for poetry awarded by the Union of Bulgarian Writers, The Sahitya Akademi’s Residency Award for his life time contribution to literature and The Palash Award for his lifetime contribution to Education and Culture.
A film, TRAVELLING LIGHT, is being made on his life and work. He is the Director of a school and College in Pune.