Gnarled within
And gnarled without,
I am the lumbering, lusting
Brute denizen of this concrete swamp,
The minion of immemorial shadow.
I am the killer and the coward,
I the beast of rages,
The blind and ugly madman
Chasing other madman
Through the death-choked catacombs of Time.
And now, as a burrowing mole might chance upon the noon sun all ablaze,
I have come to You, O Krishna,
And my savage throat,
Clogged with ghastly carrion,
Cannot cherish You.
O, I am a lover who cannot love!
I am a fool addressing Wisdom!
I am the gloomy grotesque, daring to praise the
glistening Pinnacle of beauty!
I croak and shamble,
Beetle my brows,
And groan at the prospect:
How (O how!) – I would adore You
If I only might? If only I were other than I am!
Nor does it lessen my grief to realize
That in Your infinite splendor
Even I am bathed,
As the sun baths the deep pits of Earth in passing over them.
No. I remain inconsolable!
My heart is bleeding,
And the blood is like a tortured sea
Being churned by the white hot blasts
Of Your unimagined loveliness.
Rayarama das Brahmachary
(Raymond Marais)