"Ode to the Moon"

Ode to the Moon

by Tabish Khair

A stab of Moon
between two trees

fireflies impersonating
stars

light
tangled in the branches of the night

on the road to the riverside
where did aloneness end
and loneliness begin

How lovely when a piece of poetry surprises us by appearing in a place where we wouldn't expect to find it. This poem was "on the menu", so to speak at Ketut Suardana and Janet de Deefe's Casa Luna restaurant in Ubud, Bali. Janet as many as you will know is also the director of the Ubud Writer's and Readers Festival, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that she tries to slip a little poetry into her customers' lives. (Poetry lovers who are also foodies can slip over here to try out one of her delicious recipes.) The poem above is by Tabish Khair, an Indian poet who now lives in Denmark. I found it particularly magical, reading it on a beautiful Bali night, looking out onto the landcape of hills and trees. For all that the poem evokes a night landcape of great beauty, there is a mood of melancholy. The poem reminds me, in terms of its structure, though not its form, of the Malay pantun, with references first of all to the natural world, followed by a more personal reflection in the final two lines. Word choices surprise - "a stab of moon" - describes perhaps a very new moon, scarcely giving any light. The word stab also has an edge of violence to it, and perhaps this idea of struggle is reflected too in the beautiful image of light being "tangled" in the trees. The whole poem turns at the end with the contrast between aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is (to some of us at least, myself included!) a good thing. We find peace and perhaps our inspiration in solitude. Loneliness on the other hand is painful. We don't want to be alone. The speaker in the poem is probably taking a night walk by the river, at first content with his own company but later realising that he is missing the company of others (or perhaps aching for that one very special person). I am touched by the simplicity of this poem. It's almost a Chinese brush painting. It feels like a haiku. A tiny true moment in someone's life that we all instinctively understand from our own. (My apologies for not being on this blog for a very long time - I've been a disorganised and dissipated blob and have to discipline myself to keep even my own blog afloat. Still I will be back and posting some reviews of poetry books that have been sitting on my desk for far too long.)

"Things Standing Shall Fall, But The Moving Ever Shall Stay"

Vachana 820
by Basava

The rich
will make temples for Siva.
What shall I,
a poor man,
do?

My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head a cupola
of gold.

Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.


- translated from the Kannada by A.K. Ramanujan in Speaking of Siva (Penguin Classics)


~~~

I chose this poem not only because I have found it deeply moving for years, so much so that it made me want to pen spiritual verse myself, but because of how increasingly relevant it has felt to me in recent times, in light of the ongoing spate of temple demolitions here in Malaysia.

Its relevance, today, is startling and beautiful. The last stanza captures so well what it means to hold on to faith under fire.

The above vachana is by the 12th century poet-saint and political activist Basava (also known as Basavanna, meaning "Basava the Elder", and Basaveshwara). Vachanas are "religious lyrics in Kannada free verse; vachana means literally, 'saying, thing said' " (from the introduction in the book which contains this translation). I have previously highlighted Ramanujan's translations on this blog, here.

Siva is a major Hindu god, and Basava's recurring epithet for him was "lord of the meeting rivers". This poem can be interpreted from both political and spiritual angles. Due to Basava's own political work, particularly his dream for a classless society, the vachana can be read as a polemic piece, emphasising the equal power of the downtrodden in the eyes of God. "The rich/will make temples for Siva./What shall I,/a poor man,/do?", the poem opens, contextualising it within a distinctly class-based setting. The question is rhetorical; the reply comes in the form of the second stanza, in which the poet/poor man persona details how he, too, is capable of what the rich man can do.

But the profoundness of the the final stanza moves it beyond the political, into the realm of the deeply spiritual. "[T]hings standing shall fall,/but the moving ever shall stay" -- captured by these breathtaking lines, it suddenly seems ridiculously reductionist to think of it as a sociopolitical poem. These are lines which describe the nature or the soul itself, its endurance through turbulence. These are lines which reaffirm, and reveal.

Basava was a controversial figure in his time, and his mysterious disappearance upon his return to Kudalasangama ("the confluence of rivers"), where he began his career, sparked off the imaginations of many, who variously co-opted him to suit their own ideologies: whether this meant ascribing divine qualities to him, or holding him up as an icon for social revolution.
Prior to his disappearance, he had been a minister in the court of King Bijjala, and his defiance of caste rules had been the cause of much political dissent and dispute.

For those interested in Basava's work, I recommend one of the novels I'm presently reading: Githa Hariharan's In Times of Siege. The book explores unsettling questions of identity, minority, invasion, imperialism, religion and spirituality through a fictional account of a middle-aged professor who finds himself having suddenly become a pawn used to fuel the fire between polarized secular and fundamentalist groups, when a lesson on Basavanna he writes for a correspondence course on medieval history turns controversial.