IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Rathnashikamani Bijja



Song Eternal

Embryonated,
through cellular evolutions
from unknown galaxies 
of globular gyrations,

when I stir 
from an insensible state of an infant
labored out 
to the world lulled otherwordly,

the motherly lifenote struck 
on my maieutic eardrums
blossoms 
waking voices 

from wailings of mystical mediums,
improvises Vedic verses 
wafted over warfaring standards,
entrancing even the turbulent dark night         
   
caught in nets of black illusions,
and renders 
the breathless broken reeds 
into lilting flutes;

And the tunefeet 
played on my soulstrings
presume the cosmic feet 
dancing on the space-time horizons,
amid aubades, 
illumined in epochal effusions
and resonate revived 
flowing full 
in melodies eternal.


April, 2000


Rathnashikamani Bijja's Questions:

I tried to depict the eternal nature of word as it reverberates and transcends from age to age.

Lines 13-20 refer to Mahabharatha war where Arjuna was demystified by Lord Krishna.

Lines 21-24 refer to the Cosmic dance of Shiva.

Who am "I" in this poem?

Is the pace flowing like time?

Are the allusions so subtle that they are more intangible?

Is there a feeling of music passing from an embryo to the Eternity?

Is there a dawn, twilight and dawn again in this poem?

Thanking you,






The Albany Poetry Workshop