Do not leave, my friend, do not
Leave me with just a glance.
Do not just caress me and leave
Do not just pick me up and smell
My fragrance and leave me back in the basket.
I have been plucked, tenderly
With care not to smudge or crush
My lovely petals even now damp with dew
I wait for thee to hold me to your chest
And take in deep all I have to offer
Look again at my colour, my grace and beauty
Smell me deep, my sweet scent
Let me adorn your beloved's head
Or soothe her eyes, still, in the pot.
Let me remind her of you, of your love
For all thats worth in the world is just love.
This is all I have to offer thee, my friend
My life, though it be brief.
Take me, my friend, let me be
A fleeting memory and later
Scatter me to the winds.
What more do I need
What more to fulfill
What more be the purpose of my life?
************ Balachandran, Trivandrum 25.02.2010
6 comments:
brings to mind tagore's 'pluck this little flower and take it/delay not, lest it droop and drop into dust'. cant remeber the rest.
wonder how an environmentalist would react to the cenral image of this poem. nature finds fulfilment only when utilised by man? doesnt it exisist in its own right? isnt plucking a flower equal to killing an animal?
Show me one thing that is not 'utilised' by another in nature. As naturalists are fond of saying, 'its a web of life'. Nothing stands for itself, by itself.All are connected and interdependent. Everything uses and and is used by others. The immorality of killing another is unique to man. In nature, it is normal to kill another for one's survival.
A environmentalist once famously said - 'Living is polluting'. We are using everything; what difference is there between cutting a fruit and killing a bull, both to eat? The exception is the expressed succinctly by Gandhiji - ' There is enough for man's need but not for his greed' or such. ( I am never good at quoting! :)
I, personally, never pluck a flower. I let mangoes and Pappaya and Jamba grow ripe and fall in my yard, so that crows and koels and mynahs and barbets and squirrels eat them to their fill.
This poem has undercurrents that may not show on the surface. It is about sublime love and surrender of oneself.
Thanks for breathing life into an abandoned blog! :)
do not leave my friend
nice poem
Beautiful poem,so romantic:)
mystic and philosophic at same time.. good attempt
Don't know why,but makes me sad.kind of feel deep in mind that in a way we all have the same feel what is been said here by you.
Nature is power,bright and almighty.That may be the reason why even Ann Frank,in such a terrific condition of hiding,can write paragraphs about maple trees or breeze or anything like that.Last night,I mean midnight,while I was still at the balcony enjoying nature's bliss penetrating in me,I had this thought..Why we always find solace in nature..The answer may be the 'reception mode' in nature..or the reception mode we experience and perhaps impose on.In a much deeper perspective that may be the reason most of us find solace in GOd..(moopparu thirichonnum parayunnillallo.ellam kettondirikkayalle ? athava kelkkunnuvennu nammalangu theerchappeduthunnu.iniyippo nammal prarthichathinte opposite result vannalo,athu 'thiruvishtam' nadathiyathannum..kollamalle nammal ?)
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