Bikku Under the Bodhi Tree

yogi under the banyan tree yogi under the bodhi tree bikku under the banyan tree waiting for release bikku in blissful nibbhana yogi in extinguishing moksha Penniless poet under the tenement roof Jazz organist under the pavement sky Struggling novelist under the Riviera blue Russian ballerina under the American umbrella Apprentice painter under the Sistine Chapel Sculptor Underground waiting for the agent’s call burning Anne Frank manuscripts in an air-raid fire singular melodies drowned in the descending drone Kafka writing without a morrow van Gogh dabbing his tormented palette under the Arles sun Sartre turning the Nobel Prize down for teenage girls Siddhartha abandoning his body’s palace for the people’s pain the common man unable to abandon his workload family bikku under the bodhi tree his body shrivelled under the saffron robe his begging bowl filled by karma-earning hands the last trichinosis-filled moksha meal bikku rising on a thousand-petalled flower bikku piercing through the cakras’ splendrous colours bikku on a burning pyre ©T.Wignesan 1992 April 29, 1997 Paris [from the collection : longhand notes (a binding of poems), 1999]