After Dana Lila

After just a day of Rai’s silence
Kanai began to lose control.
This really is no way to be,
he thought, I am the Supersoul.

Scrambling up to the grizzled top
of Govardhan, across the puzzled haze
he could see the shimmering white
washed walls of Nandishwar, and beyond
he thought he saw Varshana
float mirage-like into sight.

And then, Javat beyond, and Radha there,
silently sweeping floors and churning curds,
her veiled head turned always downwards,
inwards, where she watched, aware
of Banamali waiting, watching
back on Govardhan.

Radha holed up in her home, no more
promenades to Madhupuri market.
Vigilant husband,
nosy nanad,
meretricious mother-in-law,
all creating invisible wall circles
mantra circles round and round
the one of brick and govar,
round and round the one of Vedic law
that stands impregnable,
even in this carefree gopa gopi world.
They held her prisoner.

I don’t need you, Krishna calls out,
in a momentary fit of heroic,
dramatic, childish pique.
I know how to be alone!

What aberration of creative power
has taken him from infinity to finity?
from being the yogic light
of a million simultaneous suns
into this world of darkness?

In some corner of his endless soul,
he regrets having become so temporal:
I could have stayed up in my sky
and been One in my Oneness,
Full in my Fullness,
Complete in my Completeness,
so Neat in my philosophical Neatness!!

Passing nights in hollow trees,
making cuckoo sounds and hooting like an owl,
is so below the dignity
of the Supersoul.

The anxious high pitched koil calls
grate and prick on Kanai's chest.
Why not use my powers, my mystic might?
My flute could conquer all free will,
and set all things a-right
if that was what I chose.

But if he is to be himself,
he must find another way.
In his omniscience he knows.

He too must face reality.
In his omniscience he knows.