Some Tanka

SOME TANKA The mirror swallowed my footprints on the shore I couldn’t blame the waves the geese kept flying over the head the shadows kept moving afar Professors beware intellectual success lies in inventing lies to conceal common truths and sound holier-than-thou Little candles fail to illumine the deity or golden dome in the valley darkness reigns and god too awaits light The mind creates withdrawn to its own pleasures a green thought behind the banyan tree behind the flickering lust The drying trees live my age: autumn warmth of new day hot tea and singing birds Plodding away at season’s conspiracies life has proved untrue with God an empty word and prayers helpless cries On the roof top she waits for her man with moon cake and lantern: a flash of silver showers on the mist-shrouded figure The god fire in the soul forces back my secret fall I feel the retarding weight in the fate’s deadly turn Unknowable the soul’s pursuits hidden by its own works: the spirit’s thirst, the strife the restless silence, too much Copyright: Ram Krishna Singh