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"Guru of Penance" - Preface : Aide-Memoire

A random reflection transformed into a rivulet of metaphors and analogies. My pen jotted, deliberated while I thought and decided. "Blank verse it will be.The beauty of  poetry can be simply lost in rhyming lines".
   I have no specific inspiration, but mere thoughts of a moment in fictional time or space, real in every minute's instance. The poem's setting reveals the internal inevitability of the mind. The rain pours down - the inevitable - while the mind searches for decisive results, (in this case self-realisation) which is delivered through the harsh reality of penance. 
   My attempt here, is not to help read the poem. True art should be explicated in numerous ways. But, I want my illustration of  the stolid penitent to be treated as universal. The momentary consciousness could be that of any human mortal mind, which at some point realises the consequences of the actions of the past. 
   That is the driving force, the road to self- forgiveness. My protagonist is forgiven, not probably in our eyes, but in his own. That is his reward. That is subconsciously what each one of us wants to achieve in our lifetime. 
Enjoy Reading! 
Rajashree Anand

Guru of Penance

Published in Muse India: Issue 36 Mar - Apr 2011


Two-folded limbs utter karmic chants
guilty outstretched palms to heaven
tremble weak in unanswered devotion.
Ringed ear and finger pale in weakening light
as his entrance test approaches - the grey
overcast concoction- that ruthlessly precipitates.


Minutes to an hour, an inbound path
of restless reconstruction begins.
In mortal flesh, he dreams his forgiven image -
an acid-rain-drenched, mould-rotten
penitent meditator. Like a boulder of rock
immortalised - an embalmed yogi.


Alas! An ant bites.
He shivers, shakes his disturbance away
in good riddance to elusive worldliness.
The sting purifies, conviction flows
through his unclouded veins, grit overcomes guilt;
the dawning realisation heals.


Stallion-limbed emperor to demonic warlord
his bloody swords shrieked,
innocent blood froze in cold-blooded conquests.
but now, he meditates in profound knowledge;
grey clouds and mind give way to unveil,
a sky bespeckled with cosmic stardust.


The teary-eyed, one-legged guru of penance,
folds his palms at his temple ,
chants in obeisance and gratitude.
Unflushed of his sins, but aware.
Lucid and purified knows
that he is forgiven and blessed!