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#2696 - Thursday, January 11, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
Nondual Highlights
Gabriel Rosenstock
Ganesh playing the uilleann pipes!
From a sculpture park in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow, Ireland....
The following are a few selections from Gabriel's new book...
BLIAIN AN BHANDÉ
Year of the Goddess
poems in Irish with English translations
Gabriel Rosenstock
Why not envision a new
eco-poetics grounded in a
heritage thousands of years old which upholds that
everything in the universe is sacred?
--Francisco X. Alarcón
Space, time and
Borges now are leaving me …
--J L Borges
The progress of an
artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a
continual extinction of the personality.
--T S Eliot
Note
One does not often think of the tripartite goddess who gave her blessed name to Ireland - Éire, Banba, Fódla - not to mention other goddesses who have left their trace on the landscape, Danu of the Paps of Danu for instance.
Devotional poetry in India goes by the name of bhakti. In the heel of the hunt, a bhakta does not really adore or pine for any god or goddess; as with Mirabai’s love affair with Krishna, or Muktabai singing her own glistening Self; what is sought and what is praised is the brightness of eternal brightness, our shared Self, knowing neither birth nor death.
Some words in this poem sequence are ‘shaded’ to allow for another reading of a line, or a faint echo, a game much cherished by the Celtic poets of yore. Thus, the reader sees the word as the world when written as world and encounters bhakti invocations such as ma (mother) hidden in the word mad!
GR
Advaita
Advaita
Sularbh ann don fhiolar
before the eagle was
Sularbh ann don mhuir
before the sea
Sularbh ann don dair
before the oak was
Is ann Duit
You are
Sularbh ann don loch
before the lake was
Sularbh ann don néal
and the cloud
Sularbh ann d’Éirinn
before Ireland
Is ann Duit
You are
Sularbh ann don dán seo
before this poem was
Chuisligh sé Ionat
it pulsed in You
Sularbh ann don ghrian is don ghealach
before the sun and moon
Is solas Sinn
We are light
Faic thairis
nothing else
~ ~ ~
Deireadh le saint
A bhandé bhán an oighir
Léigh an dán seo le Do bheola milse
Chun go leáfaidh Thú
Anois is choíche
Santaím do dhofheictheacht
Is deireadh le saint
End of desire
White goddess of ice
Read this poem with Your sweet lips
So that You may melt
Now and forever
I long for Your invisibility
The end of all desire
~ ~ ~
Fíorchruth
Tá D’fhíorchruth le brath
I gcantain na n-éan
Is ina dtost fada
True Form
Your true form is sensed
In the song of birds
And in their long silence
Coillteán
Ligeas dom féin bheith im choillteán
Ar maos i mbainne is i gcodlaidín, gearradh mé
D’fhonn na nótaí is airde, is binne a chanadh Dhuit
Is bhíos i m’aingeal ainnis os comhair an tsaoil
Chanas gur chailleas mo ghuth
Is mo chiall
Tá mo smig maol
Triailfead cleas eile amárach
Im ghréasaí bróg
Sea, tosnód as an nua ag Do dhá throigh
Castrato
I allowed myself become a castrato
Steeped in milk, in opium, I was cut,
To sing the highest, the sweetest notes for You
What a miserable angel I was in the sight of the world
I sang until I lost my voice
And my senses
My chin is bare
I will try new tactics tomorrow
Be a shoemaker
Yes, begin all over again at Your feet
~ ~ ~
Mí an Mheithimh
Tá mí an Mheithimh ag teannadh linn
As cén áit?
Nach Tusa an Meitheamh
Nach Tú gach mí?
Bí ag teannadh Linne, a mhí an Mheithimh …
Crainn i mbun rinnfheithimh
The month of June
The month of June draws near
From where?
Are You not June
And every month?
Come, June, draw near to Us, June…
Trees are in meditation
~ ~ ~
further excerpts will be found in the Highlights from April 7, 2005, when this work was in progress: http://www.nonduality.com/hl2106.htm