Sunday 16 June 2013

Part II of the albatross poem by the Dutch poet Dèr Mouw

II

Longing’s lurchings have gashed a mighty rift
in soul’s torn surface, normally so smooth;
emerging from oblivion’s grey ooze,
wreck upon wreck, old memories now drift;

and madness, on whose wave-crests’ flexed awryness
in flickering dance wild fantasies abound,
its sledge seems to knock crumbling slabs of ground
loose from a continent of quaking I-ness.

Rising to ecstasy from deep despair
around the fearful one held captive there
insistent rings of waves constrict at will...

free Self-Awareness though of Brahman’s Being,
that witnesses its worldly fears unfleeing,
drifts in triumphant balance, calmly still.

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