Above Kasol

for R.

A tree with a peacock’s green eyes
looks into me in the air on a hill
half a mile above Kasol;
stick insects of grass-stems nod where I sit,
in a dry closeness
say all and nothing;
the rock of the mountain shows through that only the word
of a poem dare visit;
you know, you are here;
for if you are browsing through the village below,
or if at a distance of many mountains
for a time you are not where I am,
where I am, you are,
where I am,
sky-furnished with
a seat at a conference
to listen to a speaking mountainside.
Syllables of music from the stream
rise, rise;
they underlie words’ granite;
they talk with me, I talk with them, who knows?
I have sat here, I think, since time and song began.
Marvellously the sun
roars its utterance;
from pebbles on the stream’s bed to far peaks of snow
a word is chosen;
and I have chosen too.
I write on the stone
that the breeze touches;
I write to the lilt
of the stone-lapping water;
with a quill I write,
a black-and-white pen
gifted to me
by a bird that had flown
further than rocks,
across far seas,
past the mind’s journeying.
On a sky-seat
enthroned I can hear
a murmur of being,
and can survey
the mystery of
this local rock,
this breath, these eyes,
this Earth.

*

A tree with a peacock’s green eyes
looks into me in the air on a hill
half a mile above Kasol.
Where I am, none knows
but you, for you
always are one
with the hill’s story.
You are the tree’s bark,
the sun’s touch on stone,
the bodiless light
and the cool shadow.
The black-and-white quill
is not mine only.
The bird that flew
further than rocks,
across far seas,
past the mind’s journeying,
gave you to know
of the sweep of its journey.
On the hill, in the village
alone, we are two;
two travellers resting
and going together;
nor once are we lost
by the stream, in the forest,
on hillside or roadside;
for I have heard
the flight of your journey
is the bird’s journey;
and where I am, you know.