Mirabai Poems(1)

In a Sudden
 

In a sudden,
the sight,
Your look of light,
stills all,

The curd-pot
falls to the ground.

Parents and
brothers
all call a halt.

Praise out, they say,
this thing from your heart.
You've lost your path.

Says Meera:
Who but you
can see in the dark
of a heart?

 

That Dark Dweller

That Dark Dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death
Will not devour.
My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mira's Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.
My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee,
Thy slave.

 

The Plums Tasted

The plums tasted
sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl-
but what manners! To chew into each!
She was ungainly, low-caste, ill mannered and dirty,
but the god took the fruit she'd been sucking.

Why? She knew how to love.
She might not distinquish
splendor from filth
but she'd tasted the nectar of passion.

Might not know any Veda,
but a chariot swept her away-
now she frolics in heaven, ecstatically bound
to her god.
The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira,
will save anyone who can practice rapture like that-
I myself in a previous birth
was a cowherding girl
at Gokul.