An Ode To a flock of Kites _

"Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud !

I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed."

P. B. Shelley.

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The golden Misty Season, 

The sun is presently set 

Leaving tattered cloudlets painting gold 

Along the western horizon ;

While the east dips in the gloomy dark ; 

And I could see a flock of kites soaring so high,

Swinging, whirling round and round the cloudlets

 And merrily twirling around each other

As to show their soiree before the evening star.

What zeal, what indomitable exaltation, what quest, 

Bursting out from within such little breasts !

Have they driven them away from their earthly nests? 

Besides food, shelter, rest – O, frail creatures, 

What more you’re in need of to live a life so futile, 

So short, mortal, and full of uncertainties. 

Though unknowable are your longings of hearts

Yet, for a certainty, the boundless joy that maddens

Your wings set out for such a dreadful assignation. 

That Joy, infused a deathless inspiration

And ignited in man, since the moment of his birth,

The self-burning fire of sacrificial desire,

To fly further than the furthest of the sphere.

The child of rapturous Joy that knows no bound

To know the unknown, to see the unseen,

(This is true indeed ; but those Titans are rarely found.)

While we, the cowards, die of lust and fretfulness, 

Of hatred, cruelty and murderous blood-stained enmity

The winged Innocence, with a shrill cry of ecstasy, 

Unheard of in this chaotic hell, explores the Limitless,

Aiming at not to plunder, neither invading the land 

Where the virgin Nature dwells, nor spewing venom

To the ever-sacred, awry sky, you aerial bird 

With unfolded, uncrooked wings do fly beyond – 

Fly an anomalous flight only to taste the joy of freedom.

We do fly too, but in the end, on the dusty ground, 

Only certainly, to descend down fatally prostrated, 

 

Our all endeavors, when salivated with greed, 

Find ourselves encountered with nothingness – 

But you, the winged angels of our earth, pursuit

What none knows, even you yourselves too ; yet,

I love, deadly love your aimless voyage, barring a pilot.

Where we lay waste our powers in vicious vanity,

You have crossed the terrestrial border with impunity.

Away ! Away ! from this belligerent crowd and feel,

Though momentarily, the joy of the horizon ;

yet undisclosed _ and there you be.

Here, let that cosmic peace and solemnity heal 

Pain and pangs of humanity who unreasonably vie.

Be my soul and pray to the Light of the firmament :

‘Let there be light here, in the earth and in heart of man

--- joyous enlightenment.’

The Joy that emboldens your wings and evokes you sing,

The Joy that provokes to love and invokes to pray

for the blessings Of the Omnipresent.

(Edited and republished,

20/12/2023)

.

Dulal Chandra Bandyopadhyay 

23/12/2021

Bangalore.