Poetry: Nandini Sahu

Nandini Sahu

Zero Point

I am at the zero point of divine energy
in the engagement of numbers in enjoining my universe.
The muse of my life is to accomplish freedom
 and mount to sundrenched worlds.

My existence is designed to realize inner transparency
of the metalanguage and institution, and
 zero is my witness, guardian, channel and champion.

Zero is an algebraic account of Nirguna Brahman
 the Brahman sans a form and devoid of intrinsic worth.
Nirguna Brahman is a timeless ambiguity.
The known-unknown. So is zero.

The bodily laws of the cosmos
do not pertain to zero.
Zero rises as a link
between the material and the metaphysical
 between cause and conviction.

The least and also the leading of all,
 it could neither be ruined nor twisted.
 I find it everywhere,
veiled  in every other figure.

Zero is symbol of the primitive.
There is no other in order
that can embody me at this point
with such precision and such attached-detachment.



From Dust to Dust: A Voyage

Air

In the Air’s dirge and in its uncanny speech
In the symbolic inscape, towards an anonymous acreage to reach.
In the muted melancholy, winding round and round
In the deep scars of ages, sheltering words from their sound.
The ‘anatomy of love’ just glossed over the bracelet of the heart
The ruthless self-probing did create a mayhem and then an amendment.
In the cosmic plane and in the evolutionary destiny of man
On the sanctified invocation to the Muse, in an interminable fusion.
Oh virgin air!! Please tell me, what is sacred and what is profane?
Death levels all, from dust to dust—to the five elements we are prone.


Water

And then the Air went on wandering upon blue Water.
Blue was the motif, pure blue, unguarded and blessed.
Why did their guilty tongues stagger without a purpose?
Was a thirsty  yearning woman denied water amid all abundance?
Yes water is virtuous in myriad ways, not evil even when not good.
Water is reverie to nurture beyond all achievement and disappointment.
Like Sophocles’, water soothed the  bereaved soul of my  fiery being,
Like Everest, water stood tall amid sledgehammer and lute.
Of course my daily life is my temple, my faith and  conviction.
With watermark I ascend  earthly heights, towards a quivering sun.


Earth

I had been cohesive with the woodlands, I being the Earth.
I blossomed on the blooms, and then flourished  watery fresh.
In the avocado sprouts, the vines were my attitudes.
My senses flowered on every bush, and in my vulnerable arms.
Whitecaps in the soaring pointed grassland, and in the silvery murkiness
And the sea side respired with me, and the looping waves.
Trembled through the stomata of my own membrane
I had been cohesive with the woodlands, I being the Earth.
Our paradise was occupied with celebration of  light to rejoice the fusion
The green Earth was adorned with buds for  the  invocation.

Fire

I said let there be Fire and Fire there was !
The wandering soul ascended naked and with pride unabashed.
I earned love, I deserved to drink to the lees, filling life’s cups  numerous.
I have been just a giver, an instrument of giving,conquering all fire.
Life! You owe me a debt, you made me the eternal Socrates.
In the jeopardy of the abysmal, you have unsettled my winged feet.
I fear no fire now, all fire engulfed in me with time implicit
No fear of time-eternal,death or even any dainty unknotted route.
Love is the intermittent flux, a fiery ‘me’ enters its mode of being
I powder a single essence into myriad forms, the blue firmament is watching.

Sky

Oh! The sky is ablaze with gulmohur  this sepia noon,
With champak and  jasmine composed from the mellowing dawn.
New leaves sprouting on the banyan stems, yearning skyward
Honey-bees conduit, piping the budding figs; blooms call the bees homeward.
Coral and ivory lilies reveal their fragile gold
The insects and kingfishers perturb the plumy sedge.
Round the gloom of my lonesome nightfall, ululates a carnival of lights,
Like Plato, I trust justice is loftier than injustice, they deliberate it or not!!
Today’s Air is my god-self, to persist forever unblemished.
Much in it is my not-yet being, still today’s ether is bright-winged.


My Tranquil City, Tonight

Is it fine with you, love, to live and negotiate
through the language of oblivion?

It’s a separate matter that
this is yet another love story for you.
And you can tell us, re-tell, re-tell more tales.

Some know partsof it, some not even a hint of it,
some compose their own editions of it.
Anyway,I remember the primary version of the tale--
that clouds froze in dark nights.
Despite your claim
that I took your story and turned it into
whatever I needed to.
Fair enough,to make the world contented
of late
you began to amend
a simpler, happier life for yourself.
Fair enough, love!

I am glorious.
Proud.
More proud.
Much more, tonight.
To love you is like going to
the battlefield.
One comes broken, bruised
from the battle, for sure.
Still I feel like a lepidopterist, who has
Gloriously peeved an unusual moth.

We couldn’t have been written out of the past, right?
I know that youknow that I know.
The untold and the told, I know it all.
Predictable, comforting, heartening sorrows,
but trustworthy, consistent ones.

Tonight
my city is tranquil;
as if the city is having its meditation classes
as if we all are gleaming from our Yoga sessions.
Tonight
the sky is the woodland of stars.

I wonder,
is another world possible?
Ever? Ever?

Life failed me in a nebulous yet fundamental way.
Let me embrace what you have given me
like we embrace old friends;
let me deal with your gifts like
we handle old enemies.

Perhaps it’s raining in my head
perhaps it’s my survival strategy.
I know that you know that I know.
This is how it has always been
between you and me.

I made you so tall, I needed to,
in order  to live life;
and thus, you always act
as if I owe you a thing or two.

We have been simultaneously
sweethearts and former sweethearts
siblings and former siblings
lovers and former lovers
friends and former friends.
When it comes to the matter of heart
we always have had
 an implicit jungle of safety nets.

Your knowledge has made you pessimistic;
your intelligence,tough and callous.
You think too much and believe too little.
And love even less.

You are my salvation, you are my nemesis.
In you,I have been swimming through layers of love.
With you, the heart suffers like a grey pebble
in an accumulating stream
rolling down, always in motion.
I have been your beloved madcap.
You  know why.I don’t need to tell.

I knew love, the macabre, would visit upon me.
So you did.
We knew that we knew that we knew.

And then the Judgment Day had been forestalled
a blessing received its place.

I wish life could be minus such determinations
and death minus such finality. 

Prof. Nandini Sahu (Professor of English, Creative writer, Folklorist, Critic).
www.kavinandini.blogspot.in
kavinandini@gmail.com

3 comments :

  1. Worldly saturation seems to be at the backdrop of poems posted written by Nandini Sahu. The poem "Zero Point" makes amends for the efforts of poetic persona to merge with the Nirvana and divine. Zero does not adhere to the strictures of the material world. Rather it aims at realising the higher echelons of life. However, the oxymoron compound"attached_ detachment" brings home the message that salvation or moksh can be attained through the worldly experience.
    Five basic elements of Hindu philosophy _ air, water,earth, fire and sky_form the basis of the second poem "From Dust to Dust". The biblical saying that"dust thou art and to dust thou returnest" prevails upon here as three renowned philosophers,Sophocles,Socratesand Plato alongside the persona and loving signs correspond to each section separately. The distinction between the sacred and profane."My Tranquil City, Tonight" gives good account of. life_death paradigm; life being full of determinations and death being a representative of finality.
    Together, the three Psalms of life become mouthpiece of poetic persona's transcendence from material self to divine domain.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks a lot Dr.Gagan, for in depth reading and understanding. Regards.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Like American Poet Philosopher Goldie Morales, Kate Kennedy and Najwa Brax Prof. Nandini Sahu is from Indian Subcontinent a unparalleled Poet whose poetry is a wonderful blending of philosophy and poetry. An Upanishadic essence found in her Book Zero Point like T.S.Eliot who has delineated in his Poem, Waste Land.
    Her poems like that of Robert Frost being Karma Yoga of Gita. In her Poetry Zero Point, she discovers Nirguna Brahman in the void, nothingness. She discovers the Universe within Zero Point an OM.
    She shows the 5 ingredients of humans : Air, Water, Earth, Fire and Sky within her Poetry. Her Poetry is a Meditation, a spiritual essence. Such rare ideology and philosophy within her poetry must reach across the world for peace, tranquility and eternity.

    ReplyDelete

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