In Search of a Rhyme

What I've been writing for the past week - much metta, Kau

In search of a rhyme
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I love poetry. More than life itself. But ask me about my favorite poem and I’ll say “I haven’t written it yet” :)
Smart Alec jokes notwithstanding – here are the poems that have moved me and influenced me the most in the past 30 odd years of my life. This is my tribute to them and the meaning they’ve infused into my otherwise ordinary life.
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-I bow to thee my country; Sir Cecil Spring Rice

“I bow to thee my country, all earthly things above
Entire, whole and perfect, the service of my love
The love that asks no questions the love that stands the test
That lays upon the altar, the dearest and the best
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice”

This poem I love just for its pristine untouched thoughts.
When I hear this poem, I have this inner urge to stand up and stand straight.
Only your own country can command such love and respect, all other loves are often defined by their imperfections.
But your love for your own country has to be that pure. No grey area. You cannot “kinda sorta” support your motherland. Dust, Sweat, Blood and Tears. You’ve gotta do it 100% or not at all.
I especially love the often omitted middle stanza that ends in “a son amongst your sons”. I remember being in New York ..on the way to see the Statue of Liberty and it was so much like Bombay – I was so nostalgic, standing on a grey cloudy day on that ferry and I thought about “ I heard my country calling, away across the sea – across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me” . It was in that moment that I knew what it meant. What it means to be as fortunate and privileged as I am to be an Indian. That I can say where I am from with square shoulders and a straight head.
For all those “Phir bhi Dil hai Hindustani” moments, this one is a masterpiece.
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- Daffodils; William Wordsworth
“For often on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the Daffodils”

Growing up in a congested north Bombay suburb – I simply could not imagine what Wordsworth meant when he said “Ten Thousand I saw at a glance, tossing their heads in spirited dance”. This poem was a revelation. Like eating wasabi for the first time – a burst of flavor, an aggression of ideas, a diffusion of sensation.
How can flowers toss their heads? .. What is an inward eye ? ..How can a cloud be lonely wandering over hills? .. Can there be so many flowers at one time that it can look like the milky way?
My favorite line in this poem is when he says “I gazed and gazed but little thought – what wealth to me the show had brought”. I read those lines but they never made sense to me till years later. Like Life. The moment often passes and I am in it, a witness but never realize how many times I am going to recreate that very moment in my mind for a life time to follow. And then, long after – I find myself lying on my couch – like the poem- drawing inspiration from that inner well of good experiences and life shaping moments.
I’ve seen fields of flowers since, never met a Daffodil.
It will happen before my time is over – of that I am sure.

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The road not taken – Robert Frost

Robert Frost is my most admired poet for one simple reason – The power of a single thought. While the imagery that is created in my mind from his poems may not be as vivid – my knees shake at the singular thought in some of his works.
Like what he writes in “The Lockless Door” .. I remember feeling shaky and scared when I lived alone in Atlanta – when there would be a knock on the door late at night..and it is then that I knew what he meant when he said “:So at a knock I emptied my age – to hide in the world and alter with age” … or the “November Guest” ..where he talks about how he’s learned to love the bare days of November just before the snow. I found that I also had.
But the one poem of his that stands out is “The road not taken”
How many times in my life has this scene repeated itself?
Me – Two roads. One difficult and one well trodden and rife with populace.
Now unlike, this poem, I’ve learnt that it’s a fine line.
Deciding which road to take. The one less traveled by or the one that’s grassy and clear.
And every time I have take a decision and ended up banging my head – this poem come back to my mind.
The debate continues …
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The Thousandth Man – Rudyard Kipling

“One man in a thousand –Solomon says
Will stick more close than a brother
And its worth seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other”

I was introduced to this poem by Nandu – dear friend, fellow lit buff and philosopher. An avid reader and orator himself, I can never forget Nandu reciting verses of this poem to me on a cold Friday evening in the Fall. I went home and read it immediately.
I was at a strange place in my life. I’d gone through some testing personal and professional circumstances that had sometimes gotten the better of me before I eventually got the better of them.
I had behaved in strange and inexplicable ways. Made several mistakes and gone on a year long excercise in showing just how exactly human and rampant to imperfections I was.
And I’d seen collateral damage of every kind.
Yet, there were some who had simply stood by me. And held my hand at the end of the worst days filled with my worst choices. And I knew instantly what this poem meant.
It meant that in matters of the heart, things were past logic.
And when the storm was over and the thunder died down – the only ones that mattered were ones who’d watched and coached you through it – never once breaking eye contact. It was only adversity that tested relationships. Like the worst of winds, it would strip you bare.. And leave you with only that which was an inseparable part of you. The Thousandth Man. I am blessed to know what this feels like.

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IF – Rudyard Kipling

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,'
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! “

The first time I read this poem, I was 18 and sleepy. I was at the National Defence Academy in Pune. The night before my brother’s graduation parade. He is in the Army and I was in his room – chatting with him before his big day. There was a small book – lying on the shelf. He said – every cadet had a book like that in their rooms with rules and prayers etc. The last page of that book had me mesmerized. Even for an 18 year old at the brink of the world – this poem was a turning point. I knew – even then that I had experienced something I would hold on forever. This one poem has seen me through so many so many rough moments in my life…when the minutes were indeed “unforgiving” or “watch the things you gave your life to broken” and when you cant “breathe a word about your loss”
I always have a printout of this poem at work and I look at it when I am thinking and it makes me want to be .. a better me.

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Looking back, I realize that these poems have humbled me and helped me understand and have a richer life experience.
and the handful 30 odd poems or so that I do hold close to my heart, I can read over and over again and still learn something new from them each time.
I hope the learning never ends.
I hope I continue to enjoy and remember them and live a charmed life through them.
and above all, I hope they keep coming back to me and in the words of Wordsworth I can also say that "the music in my heart I bore - long after it was heard no more".
Amen.