TO LOVE: POEM BY NIRALA (1899-1961)

meher baba, by nad wolinska

    

            TO LOVE


           While finite nature still lay in the trance

           of Infinity you, beginningless,

           were only darkness, until perverse creation

           stirred by its own desire alone was set

           once more in motion. Fruit of delusion, you

           descended then into the world,

           kindling the lightning's magic in the breast,

           ever transforming mere sensation into

           substance, as waters turn to mist, then clouds.

          Attired in the brilliant raiment of desiring,

          creation became temptation. Forms, locking

          their arms around each other, surmised, "Now we

          have found it!" But then alas, bodies trapped

          in the small errors of their judgment, they
    
          both understood: love it had never been

          but the shadow of love.

                                                 Yet love shall always be

          the unstrung chain of diamonds on every breast,

          though tangling every soul entangled never,

          but ever the sovereign power.


                                                   --- Nirala
                                  (tr by David Rubin)