A PILGRIM'S SEARCH
1) Starry-eyed I look forth to break
Through routine-grid and slake
My soul with fresh ethereal trip;
No guessing of unforeseen slip.
My earthly burden bowed me down
No jousting knight-a whining weather-beaten clown.
2) I climbed aloft to gaze at the peak
Strained every nerve to see the divine streak
Assuming virtuous strength to touch
The sublime summit, but not much;
I sensed -- a sinking fatigue down
Not a blooming lotus--a withering brown.
3) Dipped in cool laving stream
I couldn't shake off my leaden dream;
In tinkling bells of sacred sound
No heavenly thrill I found;
I guzzled my senses with pleasures full
Not yet freed from the mundane pull.
4) Before the shrine I bowed and stood
My filthy passions rugged and crude
With fiery tongues full-hooded broke
No change from sacred chant and smoke
Stuck to the ground I could not feel
Unresponsive as a bar of steel.
5) Is this a journey, just moving on and on
A lifeless load without inner dawn ?
The distant denizens of the sky
Beckoned me, yet I can only sigh ;
No passionate God-centered eye;
I moved on and on with a soul-stifled cry.
6) Immersed in deep soul-soothing sleep
I clomb within the summits steep
A ring of rain-bow tinted rays
Gleamed at once from star-studded ways
A bursting tide of bliss with flooding love
I felt the touch of Ganges gushing from above.
*********************************
28th June, 2015 Somaseshu Gutala
Ref:
Ethereal trip = thinking about divine topics.
Jousting Knight = Engaged in fighting like a warrior
Weather-beaten clown = tired fool or rustic.
Leaden dreams = Lazy and sluggish mental state
Blooming lotus = mental joy and unfoldment
Withering brown = faded and dull state like a fallen leaf
fiery and full-hooded = Impure thoughts rise like serpents.
Clomb = An old word for "Climbed"
Note: In this last "Travel Poems" series the pilgirm's search for
getting spiritual peace is revealed. Though the pilgrim
undertakes an arduous journey to see the temple, he
does not get mental peace. He mechanically goes through
all formalities but his mind filled with wordly attachments
and impure thoughts did not make him worthy of getting
true spiritual bliss. After returning home he fell asleep tired
and frustrated. Suddenly he felt his mind freed from worries
and he felt a wave of bliss as if he was bathed in the holy
waters of Ganges.Unless we are mentally pure, just change
of place will not affect us much. If not,
"Travelling is a fool's paradise" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
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