Sitaram
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The sun arose.
The lightless figure rose,
From out of a chilled and dewey will,
And sought to be fulfilled.
Through twilight moved, which is not dark or light,
A journey ending everyday, beginning every night.
Questioning the stars which are too dim,
"What is the greatest pleasure in?"
Asking the sea beneath the dusk, whose waters are too bright.
The sea grows dark, the stars do not grow bright.
The sea grows bright, the starlight disappears.
The answer is not in the sound one hears
Of setting suns,
Of rising stars,
Of dim starlight reflected in the sea.
"Would you call me Cloud who moves with deftness,
Seeking answers as one deaf, who does not hear but sees?"
The morning rose
A shapeless cloud arose above the sea
And said, "Where would great pleasure be?"
The cloud grew great throughout the day and chose
To move within a tepid twilight world.
The air of the afternoon grows hot.
The evening air grows cold.
The Sun evaporates the sea.
The cloud between grows old.
The cloud grows large and moves within this change
Constant and unchanging, while the range
Of afternoons and midnights interchange.
"What must be done to be fulfilled?",
He asks of evening and of day.
Each answers half. The halfs do not agree
To one in dusk where day nor night is real.
And he is as one blind, who does not see but feels.
But contemplate the change it would present,
When, in his arc, he, shifting by degrees,
Should pass the ocean's latitude and cross a continent!
Then for the first to cast one's gaze on trees,
To see one's shadow creep across a plain!
A rose reached up and beckoned to the cloud,
Fat and bent with age, and asked,
With all its redness, if it might not rain.
And he was move, but, moving, he refrained.
The evening set.
The evening sky was clear,
And all horizons thought of redness
As the darkness neared.
The rose drew closed without finality,
It's minute petals wet, but not
Without reality.
- Sitaram
(circa 1967)
The lightless figure rose,
From out of a chilled and dewey will,
And sought to be fulfilled.
Through twilight moved, which is not dark or light,
A journey ending everyday, beginning every night.
Questioning the stars which are too dim,
"What is the greatest pleasure in?"
Asking the sea beneath the dusk, whose waters are too bright.
The sea grows dark, the stars do not grow bright.
The sea grows bright, the starlight disappears.
The answer is not in the sound one hears
Of setting suns,
Of rising stars,
Of dim starlight reflected in the sea.
"Would you call me Cloud who moves with deftness,
Seeking answers as one deaf, who does not hear but sees?"
The morning rose
A shapeless cloud arose above the sea
And said, "Where would great pleasure be?"
The cloud grew great throughout the day and chose
To move within a tepid twilight world.
The air of the afternoon grows hot.
The evening air grows cold.
The Sun evaporates the sea.
The cloud between grows old.
The cloud grows large and moves within this change
Constant and unchanging, while the range
Of afternoons and midnights interchange.
"What must be done to be fulfilled?",
He asks of evening and of day.
Each answers half. The halfs do not agree
To one in dusk where day nor night is real.
And he is as one blind, who does not see but feels.
But contemplate the change it would present,
When, in his arc, he, shifting by degrees,
Should pass the ocean's latitude and cross a continent!
Then for the first to cast one's gaze on trees,
To see one's shadow creep across a plain!
A rose reached up and beckoned to the cloud,
Fat and bent with age, and asked,
With all its redness, if it might not rain.
And he was move, but, moving, he refrained.
The evening set.
The evening sky was clear,
And all horizons thought of redness
As the darkness neared.
The rose drew closed without finality,
It's minute petals wet, but not
Without reality.
- Sitaram
(circa 1967)