The Fish and the Crocodile
When Nand's son with his dark face appeared to me,
I forgot about the world and its duties. I went out of
my mind.
A crown of peacock feathers opened on his forehead,
And I saw the spot of saffron which made my eyes
glad.
Light caught on his earring; his hair curls fell over his
cheek,
Like fish who crawl out of a pond to meet a crocodile.
My Lord has entered the play, and the world is
amazed.
Mira says: I dedicate myself to every arm and leg of
this Lord.
Source of the text - Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Versions by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004, p. 8. This poem was translated by Robert Bly.
TJB: Extraordinary blazon-metaphor: a cheek like earth, lock of hair like fish crawling on land, the lover’s mouth perhaps like the crocodile.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
Blog Archive
-
▼
2015
(48)
-
▼
November
(32)
- "Chillen Get Shoes" by Sterling A. Brown
- "Mariana Trench" by Joanna Klink
- "Little Book 138 Pedro April 30 79" by Hannah ...
- "Introduction" by Hannah Weiner
- from "The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy" by Edwar...
- "King Alfred's Epilogue to the Pastoral Care of Gr...
- "The Death of Alfred," translated by Robert Hass
- "Juan's Song" by Louise Bogan
- "Cementerio de Punta Arenas" by Enrique Lihn
- "The Grauballe Man" by Seamus Heaney
- from "Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons" by ...
- from "Act Too . . . The Love of My Life" by The Roots
- "In Battle" by Abu-L-Hasan Ben Al-Qabturnuh
- "Picking up Pinecones" by Mary Ruefle
- "The Moon was but a Chin of Gold" by Emily Dickinson
- "The Bible: 2728 Objects in Order of Appearance" b...
- "Lithium" by Noelle Kocot
- "Dawn" by Federico García Lorca
- "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" by Edward Lear
- "The Fish and the Crocodile" attributed to Mirabai
- from "Testimony: The United States (1885-1890), Re...
- "Shorter American Memory of Indian Wars" by Rosema...
- "The Orange" by Diane Wakoski
- "The Sadness of the Lingua Franca" by Christina Davis
- "Pliny" by Primo Levi
- Funeral Music 2, by Geoffrey Hill
- Funeral Music I, by Geoffrey Hill
- Untitled poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- "To Tirzah" by William Blake
- "Middle-Aged Woman at a Pond" by Alicia Suskin Ost...
- "To William Butler Yeats on Tagore" by Marianne Moore
- "Sonnet 30" by William Shakespeare
-
▼
November
(32)
No comments:
Post a Comment