‘Take Me’

God as Lover

To the Foot of the Bed

To the foot of the bed I’ll fasten your arms
with flower-ropes shamelessly.
Who will free you from the temple of my body?
Rivals? What can they do but flame in anger?

To the foot of the bed I’ll fasten your arms.

You are the gardener, I the flowering vine;
Why plant me if you will not water me?
You are the honey bee seduced by my love,
You, dying in the fragrance of my lotus heart.

To the foot of the bed I’ll fasten your arms.

Love’s essence and lover should be one—
Yours is the divine surrender of body and mind.
Says Narsaiyo: Gopi, won’t you teach me
how to burrow into his heart and win?

To the foot of the bed I’ll fasten your arms.

(Narsinh Mehta: Keki Daruwalla and Meena Desai)

only Girdhar
is mine
no one else

no one else
I’ve hunted
the world over

left family
and kin
to sit with
hermits

rejoiced
for the pious
wept
for the world

watered
the tree of love
with
my tears

kept
the essence
discarded
the rest

Rana
sent me poison
I drank it
happily

I am in love

who cares
what happens
next

(Mirabai: Rahul Soni)

Radha is lost to the onslaught of love.
She weeps from tree to tree and finally succumbs,
searching through the forests and groves.
Her braid—a peacock grasps it, thinking it a snake;
her lotus feet attract the bees;
The honey of her voice makes the crow in the kadamb tree
caw, caw to mimic its cuckoo;
Her hands—the tender leaves of blossom-bringing Spring:
the parrot, when he sees, comes near to taste;
And the full moon in her face inspires the cakor bird
to drink the water washing from her eyes.
Her despair, her desperation—the Joy of the Yadus sees it
and appears at her side just in time;
Surdas’ Lord takes that seedbud of new birth
and cradles it, a newborn in his arms.

(Surdas: John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer)

Cool rain clouds, karuvilai blossoms,
kaya flowers, lotuses, recurrently urge
me to sup at Hrsikesa’s feet, his limbs
sweaty, quivering in time like a veena
string, the universe waiting, watching.
I’d give him the food he most desired.
Just leave me alone with him.

(Andal: Ravi Shankar)

It’s ages since I last saw you, dear.
Just as well I’m alive, or I wouldn’t be here
To see you. But I am alive,
And so we’ve got to see each other:
Or it would have been out of the question.

I bore so much, being of the sex that’s weaker.
A stone under the same duress would have fractured.

Time — for an unfortunate — passes slowly.
I presume you, in Mathura, must have been okay?

I don’t think of my pain except momentarily,
Your happiness is my happiness, necessarily.

It seems like today all my sorrows are over.
The treasure that went missing has been recovered.

Now let the cuckoos arrive and make music.
Let there be coloratura in the bees’ buzzing.

Let the southern breeze blow more slowly.
And let the moon ascend in the sky.

Inspired by the goddess, Chandidas says:
There can be no sorrow after such togetherness.

(Chandidas: Amit Chaudhuri)

I have Maya for mother-in-law;
the world for father-in-law;
three brothers-in-law, like tigers;

and the husband’s thoughts
are full of laughing women;
no god, this man.

And I cannot cross the sister-in-law.

But I will
give this wench the slip
and go cuckold my husband with Hara, my Lord.

My mind is my maid:
by her kindness, I join
my Lord
my utterly beautiful Lord
from the mountain-peaks,
my lord white as jasmine,
and I will make Him
my good husband.

(Akka Mahadevi: A. K. Ramanujan)

She whose heart is full of love
Is ever in bloom.
Joy is hers for she has no love of self.
Only those who love You
Conquer love of self.
Come, Lord, and abide in me.

Many a garment did I wear,
The Master willed not and
His palace was barred to me.
When He wanted me, I went
With garlands and strings ofjewels and raiment of finery.

Nanak says: A bride welcomed in the Master’s mansion
Has found her true Love.

(Guru Nanak: Khushwant Singh)

O friend, I cannot tell you
Whether he was near or far, real or a dream.
Like a vine of lightning,
As I chained the dark one,
I felt a river flooding in my heart.
Like a shining moon,
I devoured that liquid face.
I felt stars shooting around me.
The sky fell with my dress,
Leaving my ravished breasts.
I was rocking like the earth.
In my storming breath
I could hear my ankle bells,
Sounding like bees.
Drowned in the last waters of dissolution,
I knew that this was not the end.

Says Vidyapati:
How can I possibly believe such nonsense?

(Vidyapati: Deben Bhattacharya)

Love Poems: The Playboy

1

Don’t tell us those lies,

heaven and earth
know your tricks.

Just one thing,
my lord of the ancient wheel
that turns at your slightest wish:

while all those girls
—their words pure honey—
stand there
wilting for love of you,

don’t playact here and sweet-talk
our lisping mynahs,
our chattering parrots!

3

Pure one,
you devoured once
the sea-surrounded world.

Great one,
it isn’t right to grab
our dolls and toys.

What’s wrong is wrong
even for you.

You tease us with sweet talk:
if my brothers hear of it,

they won’t wait to see
right and wrong,
they’ll just bring out
their sticks

and beat you up.

4

Rich and perfect sound
of strings
on an ancient lute

other than all others
that good men study
purity
sweetness of sugarcane
and ambrosia

O dark raincloud
Krsna

without you
I’m not:

take me

(Nammalvar: A. K. Ramanujan)