a sequence of erasure poetry sourced from the 1914 English prose edition of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali , translated from Bengali by the author himself and introduced by W.B. Yeats; numbered section titles indicate the source sections in this book.
Introduction
. . . Other Indians came / to see me . . . Their reverence / for this man sounded strange / in our world. When / we were making the cathedrals / had we a like reverence / for our great men? / These prose translations / . . . have stirred my heart / (I have carried the manuscript about me for days!) / . . . a world I had dreamed of all my life long: / A tradition where poetry and religion / are the same thing, / passed through centuries.
These verses will not lie / in little well-printed books / upon ladies' tables who turn / the pages with indolent / hands that they may sigh over a life / without meaning / which is yet all they can know / about life.
Mr. Tagore, like Indian civilization itself, / has been content to discover the soul / and surrender himself to its spontaneity: An innocence / a simplicity that one does not find / elsewhere in literature / makes the birds and the leaves seems as near to him / as they are near to children . . .
– W.B. Yeats, September 1912
1.
Endless pleasure
gives birth to utterance
Gifts come
to these small hands of mine
Ages pass
and still there is room to fill
3.
I listen in silent amazement.
Light illumines the world
runs from sky to sky
breaks through
My heart struggles for a voice. I cry
captive in endless meshes of music
5.
I ask for a moment.
The works I have in hand I will finish.
My heart knows no rest. My work
becomes endless in a shoreless sea.
Summer has come to my window:
the bees, the flowering grove. Time
to sit still, face to face, to sing
of life in silent leisure
7.
Make my life
like a flute of reed
to fill with music
9.
Come to beg.
Never look back
10.
Where live the poorest, and lowliest and lost? I
bow, reach down to the depth among the poorest,
and lowliest and lost. My heart can never find its way
among the poorest, the lowliest and the lost
11.
Leave chanting, singing and telling of beads
in a temple with doors shut.
The tiller is tilling the hard ground, the pathmaker is
breaking stones in sun and in shower, garment
covered with dust. He is bound with us. Leave
flowers and incense. Stand by him in toil
12.
The way is long.
On the first light through the wilderness –
leaving my track on star and planet.
The most distant course comes the nearest.
The most intricate leads to utter simplicity.
Knock at every door to come to his. Wander
through the outer worlds to reach the innermost.
Eyes stray. I shut them, said, “Here” and the cry,
“Where?” Melt into tears. Deluge the world.
I am
14.
My desires, my cry: hard
refusal. Day by day these gifts:
this sky and light and this body and the life and the mind.
Day by day refusing me, saving me
15.
I am here to sing. I have
a corner seat. I have no work to do.
At the dark temple, at midnight
command me to sing.
In the morning air
honour my presence
17.
Waiting for my love
to give myself up
Why is it so late?
Bind me fast
– waiting for my love –
to his hands.
Market day is over.
Work is done.
Those who came to call me
have gone back
Waiting for my love –
into his hands
21.
I must launch my boat. Spring
has done its flowering, I wait.
Yellow leaves flutter
and fall. What emptiness.
A thrill through the air: notes
floating from the other shore
