Response

The firth poem from S D Anugyan’s poetry book, Here Are The Empire Builders!

This was partly inspired by my hearing Osho saying how response differs from reaction, in that there is an awareness in it, whereas reaction by itself is mere animal instinct. We are now with a different empire, that of ancient Japan, where a young samurai, after distinguishing himself in action, withdraws from his martial calling for a different kind of calling. The Seeker has become a Lover.

In the eyes of the world, he is a failure, a coward, a shamed man. To his lover he is everything. The question is whether they can create their own world in the midst of one that has lost the plot. (No less appropriate for the time we are living in now perhaps?)

Distant madness
The war of parents
Over a glass-ribbed ocean.

The inference is that we are in the midst of a far greater war than any of those in ancient Japan: the War of Empires. The poem opens and closes with the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The scale may be far greater, but for lovers the question remains simple: can truth and beauty exist amidst such appalling odds?

Our lovers at least may find a way, their safety and seclusion hinted at in the final lines, a hidden haiku:

Animal white flees
Over the sea. No-one will
Intrude or invade.

Burning deep
Steelbird flees the skies.
One leg consumed by Hiroshima,
The other, Nagasaki.

Love story!
A reject, a relay
Once returned from the sea
Sword long and sharp upon his back
Slim, forever bright over the sea.
He had no smile now
And his movement was slight.

She saw beyond
Beyond his pale sheet of an open face:
Burning boats, that crazy leap
Fire towards fire on the jewel-waves.
Friendships forever of quiet heroes.

The response
Echo of silence

Master nor honour taught
Those wealthy songs of the woodland,
Beloved arms of the air,
Without strategy.
Accidentally shamed,
Uncertainty plays its game,
Going along the hill to the house,
Occasionally shaded by celebrations of birds.
No-one knows.

Her face grew pregnant with cities as he spoke
With the strong whistling of the afternoon.
“Smile at me.”
“Are we pearls in the other’s eyes
Revealed by a knife?”
“Mirrors contrast
Sharply with this world.”
Mind’s dams break.
Blossoms of laughter
Pour and pour upon their separate lives.

Distant madness
The war of parents
Over a glass-ribbed ocean.

Lengthy leaves of shadows
Play in the empty house
Criss-crossing on the wooden floor.

Child sing, mind register.
(Respond to touches sweet:
I like this but I don’t like this.)
Bicycles and ice-cream cones!
Let’s walk, enjoy this hill,
Leaves twirling,
Faces unmasked by lies of time.
Aglow, rapture of dark.

Animal white flees
Over the sea. No-one will
Intrude or invade.