In2-MeC

ISKCON Salem, Tamil Nadu, India
17 March 2004

From the Sky

The mind is always flying to this and that, but one must practice concentrating
mind always on the form of the Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna, or on the sound
of His name. The mind is naturally restless, going hither and thither,
but it can rest in the sound vibration of Krsna. (Srila Prabhupada, from the
Introduction to Bhagavad-gita As it Is)

You may not know me now, since I fell from the sky.
With a shock of hard light--
frets of gold fire in the roof of the night--
an arc of certainty has scotched my fly.

Words were wings and clouds were things
waving me up with silvery fingers of hope
where Fancy takes shape atop an Indian rope,
where vain Promise dances and veiled Future sings.

"Make yourself home, everything is all right,"
feathery voices on breaths of bright lies.
White fluff without ground is but the smoke of disguise
that smears the gape of befuddlement from sight.

Righteousness as raiment for confusion to wear--
a pillbox hat that tumbles from a steepled pate;
weaves of speech that won't bear a cobweb's weight
are a dizzy bridge groping from here to there.

Credit me for patience in this, my bakanda-nyaya,
but now time turns brittle in these later years.
Godbrothers depart; and so no, I'm not "all ears"
to the latest chapter of What's New to Take Us Higher and Higher.

The surface mind is the skin of boiled milk--
it can't hold these hopes you hold dear.
The ground is the sound uttered by him with no fear--
Abhaya Caranaravinda, reposed as the finest silk.

My master calls me, I'll leave you to your cloud,
for I have service on the solid base
of Krsna Nama, so rich with taste
that it lifts us Back Home if we keep chanting it aloud.

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