Sing Baul

at the Kopai river

In the dry grassblades next to the river,
at ease on the hard earth, where the air quivers
in the sharp grassblades, a soul is singing,
an unseen bird winging among the tall grassblades,
and up into mountain’s heights, down into tree’s roots,
and in with small goatlings nuzzling at green herbs

Sing Baul

in the bursting of bells into flower and the drumming of rain
and in all the notes there may be of the stringed instrument
carried by day across and across the riverbank
farmland and streets of the city, and over and over
where we can journey in love, and come to a resting-place,
and under night’s loveliest bedspread of plucked moon and stars

Sing Baul

sing with ease as a boatman propels his boat,
approaching a bend of the river, and surely rounds it –
and softly sing on a wood bench in the tea-house,
and splendidly sing in a shirt of wild patchwork
dancing in a small room, and out in a field
whirling at evening before a vast silent throng

Sing Baul

I am carried in a boat along a silent river.
In the dry grass my soul makes free. I am gone
out on the sea of night. And butterflies frolicking
in the simplicity of life, where laughing souls meet,
capture my song. And here too is Gurudev’s song.
In the shining house of peace in Santiniketan

Sing Baul