Smell of Spices - A journey back in time

Introduction

The sequence 'Smell of Spices' was written and completed during February 2006. It started from a dialogue concerning the possibilities of cyber-communication between the author of Kritya, Rati Saxena, and Argo Spier, designer of the Argoboat virtual workspace and poetry platform. As such, it is an illustration of the creative possibilities of web exchange and digital communication. Apart from the high quality of Rati Saxena's work and the refined editing done by Argo Spier, the mere fact that two people from extremely different backgrounds, eastern and western, have completed such a beautiful poetic storytelling sequence is an achievement rarely realized before.

The basis for the sequence is the poem "I, Udaipur" which was featured on Rati Saxena’s page on the Argoboat and which was written some time ago. Udaipur and Lake of Udaipur has special meaning for this poet, as it is her birthplace. She has returned only twice in her lifetime but her childhood memories are very much alive.

Intimacy and distance, love and detachment, creation and unworthiness are the dualistic pairs that are ever present in ‘Smell of Spices’. It lingers like mist over water and the poet, with a few strokes of her pen gives the reader glimpses of clarity. She handles her pen like a brush and paints wonderful stills that, in the sequence, functions as separate frames in a motion picture telling a story very much alive and real. The poems were sent to Argo Spier by e-mail one at a time and he has ventured with her back in time with her, to visit Lake Udaipur again. In the exchanges, Spier pointed out key-elements and helped cut-and-paste the material as it emerged from Rati’s mind to form the story and motion picture of Udaipur. His input facilitated the accessibility to Western readers. He provided the hinges that linked the poems and traces of his input could directly be seen in the tautology of certain concepts where the Hindi and English words are used next to each other. This gives an added value to the work as it stresses its specific character. ‘Smell of Spices’ is not a translation into English from Hindi but the result of a co-creative process. The poems were written in English and Spier’s mediation consists in editing.

The adventure of writing and working together on a Virtual platform was great fun to both poet and editor, and both poets bridged the gap between Eastern and Western Cultures as a way to view this sequence in a serious attempt. This is the work of two poets who had met each other only via the digital channel of the Internet and in the cyber workspace of the Argoboat. They haven’t seen each other or heard each other’s voices. Their engagement in poetry and the love of it drove them to open understanding and the sharing of deep emotional feelings. East meets west and modern western culture meets Hindi and Sanskrit culture, and all this happens on the shores of the Lake Udaipur.

Prologue


I am still completely intoxicated, in love.
And with this love, I watch the circle.
- Chogyam Trungpa

Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet at the lake, the camera
did you know?
- it is an ordinary one

Yesterday my feet, you know?
my feet are always wet
from standing in sweet water

Wet from waiting
waiting for you, my love


***


 Poet’s pyre

In a blindfold world
I go beat the deathless drum
– Bhikku Nanamoli


This is not the first poem
I have taken out from the dusty old file
there are a number of poems which are still
fresh and smell of new earthen pots

Agnaye swaha!
it is the primary offering for the pyre
the journey into your being
and not being

You were here till yesterday
and in the yellowness in the corners
of leaves you now stand as a pen in my hand
in its scratches on paper
you are the rolling wind through my fan
I smell you as I smell sharp spices

Agnaye swaha!
thist is the second offering I make
for your pyre

The boat is in the sea
the net is in the boat
the fish is in the net
the fisherman is killing the fish
blue is a shade that fades
a boat is the one that sinks
I am fish for you

Agnaye swaha!
you are
in the verses of this poem’s remains
we wrote them together, remember?
the words
the melody
the hum of our breaths
you are in here
in the threads of my thoughts
in the endless infinity of my love
for you

Agnaye swaha!
and for ever and 4 days
you will remain with the poem
and the empty box
and the fallen leaves from trees
and the smell of spices as it fades away


 Marks of deterioratation on New Moons Day

When I meet the right consort
my thoughts become clear
- Chogyam Trungpa


This time again
you have given yourself up to prison
you have build the walls yourself
and now you live in the heavy dungeon
even cracks won’t allow entry

A draft, but inside I see you smile
you shine like the light of the sun
oh what glow your name still have!

This time you have cheated on me!
I whom has given you warm kisses on your feet
and stroked your whole body with my eyelashes

Last night, on my window sill
I saw the marks of deterioration
and of creeping death
of my poems endings
the corpses, and my fingers are stiff
with pain in my neck
and shoulders
the crack’s inside
inside my body ache is at war

I am turning from river to blood


 I am afraid of thunder

Sesame oil is the essence.
Although the ignorant know that it is in the sesame seed,
They do not understand the way, effect, and becoming.
- Chogyam Trungpa

For long while a smile is coming to me
like the butterfly
it flutters to lips
but I am still afraid of thunder

What will happen when thunder
awakens me?

The pathways are disappearing
and in the undergrowth, shadows of Pipal trees
there’s a thousands deaths waiting
on every branch
never a nightingale!

Oh, shall I clap my hands
and see how they scatter away my fear?

Fly away, come away with the sound
of the clap of my hands!
I am the vulture preying on the bird
of love
I am dipping my fingers into its broken feathers
searching for vermin to scatter them
into the holes of snakes

Oh look at you, a half broken branch
about to fall!

You are an illusion in my hallucination
- but I knew this for a long time now -
you are selfless selfishness!
I have learned that from your company
I have discovered how you are my myth
I cannot leave you

Because your love is sweet honey
on my lips
your nectar, the nectar
dripping into my neck
its from the lotus
it comes from Udaipur
oh do not leave me!

The pen on my desk
its inscriptions and strokes
I will not write!
Just shelter me and hide me
in the eye of a needle
in the threads of things I have left alone


 Embroidery flowers

The birds warble their glad songs.
Spring blossoms in the treetops.
- Louis Nordstrom.


A long time ago, I
but then my Embroidery flowers
oh my sari
it was the fragrance I send you
through the cracks in the walls
hoping to cover
the distance towards you

You are mehandi, the henna of Full Moon's Day

How much more so when perpetually diseased
By the manifold evils of desire?
- Shantideva

I have discovered my feet
and after walking almost half of the way
to where you are
Oh what is that strange!

And now on the road to red lotuses
where my heels had treaded
there are blossoms between my toes
red Valentine for good luck!

I adore my feet
they have faces
What is this, your fingers
are you stroking
touching
feeling my faces?

My dost lovely friend
you are mehandi, the henna
to decorate my feet

I draw flowers for you on my feet.
Vasant spring is already here!
the sun is shining
take off your sweater, my love!

shishir is when ice fall from the heavens
greeshm summer is green
and on my shoulders
I am ready for running
just put a finger tip on a toe
and write your name onto it
my journey is flashing pink
more red than ever
- my journey towards you



 Tickle and dance

The trees and also the great woods
All are made splendid in the 10 directions
– Edward Conze


This is not a river, so it doesn’t need
the mountain to shoulder against
it is a lake! The sweet Lake Udaipur!
The honey lake in the lap of the marusthal desert
it’s kokh womb never gets dry
it never goes from here to menopause

no, no my dost lover! My lover!
You can’t lit the pyre with or on it
neither on my sari pallu’s end
that’s reserved for my children
to play on
to tickle me on
- hear them laughing and dancing

Look! Oh look! I am not dried up water reservoir
I am the lake, my womb is the water
This world is inside me!



Cuppan chuppi- Hide-and-seek

In the sea of my mind the words as waves have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen
- Chockyam Trungpa


Lake! O dear Lake! Play Cuppan chuppi
hide-and-seek with me!
I turn and run away from Udaipur
I hide myself behind a coconut tree

Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!

Time passes by, days.
I have forgotten to show myself, forgotten it!
like I have forgotton the way in which I
had come to you first

my dear lake! My dear lake!
you changed your sari’s colour!
You wear no veil!
Why is there a teardrop in your eye?
Is it because of me?

Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!

Will they come look for me?
I am sitting in the shrub of thorns


 Hands on shoulders

I go to Kasi’s city now
To set the wheel of law in motion
– Bhikku Nanamoli

Rivers run and can meet each other
but sakhiyan friends never meet again in life
after their marriages, when they have left
with their love ones
they never come back

Come, put your hand on my shoulder
I’ll keep mine on yours.

Come let us gossip, that neighbouring girl
she fell in love
between the earthen walls
separating the fields
let us weave the thread of gossip
as long as the threads of memories


 Anklet bells on Protector's day

Dancing in space
Clad in clouds
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
The stars are my retinue.
- Chocyam Trungpa


Come swim in me, come
do your washing in me!
come and clean your dirty dresses
because how much dirt can you carry
on your journey towards life’s end?

Come to meet me at lake Udaipur
come and spill your holiness in me
into my womb

when night falls
A thousand narataki dancers come out
to dance for me

Let us dance, my love!
dance with our breasts touching
dance with our colourful feet
full on the lotus bloom

Hear! anklet bells ring
chann-channn-chanan chann

Your diamond toe ring, white lily
play with my breasts
touch my nipples with your toes
play-run your feet over the valley
of my tummy
I have a thousand lotuses
for your hands and feet,
my feet, see how lush red
I am
blushing now!

Do not worry, my pilgrim!
Do not worry, my poet!
I have discovered all of my feet
again and again
and many, many years ago
I danced like a Raj Nartaki
Will you dance with me now?

I will teach you the journey of how feet
Charevehi! Chareveri!
keep on running
faster and faster
walking into arms of lovers


Small flowery marks of lotuses

Rain, sleet, snow, ice - as such
they may different, but when melted,
they're the same valley stream water.
- Thomas Cleary


That evening
at godhuli, when the cows were there
and the Temple bells rang
she came out from her hiding

Behind the mango tree, she – There!
A baby girl dangling from her arms
A baby girl pockmarked with small buts
of flowers
lotuses tied to her feet

Where will I take my child?
hush! do not cry!
look at Udaipur, the mother and father, sigh
What shall I do with a baby girl?
Drown it?

Why are a thousands baby girls wasted
on the shores of lake Udaipur?
Why every year thrown away
like poisoned sulphuric sand?

Look at the bird, it’s beak is yellow
that is my baby girl with a ribbon
she’s in the tree
she flies
she sings
and when she dives through the sky
her beak turns blue
blue like the Holy Blue Shrine
at the entrance of Lake Udaipur

It was a yesterday that she picked a berry for me!
today she picked two blue black ones
and offered it to my folder nest
for poetry, a papaya piece
she gave me
and a mango bite - so sweet


The singing mother on Dakini day

In the sea of my mind the words as wave have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen.
- Chockyam Trungpa


All the palaces and pearls in the world is for you
my son
oh mother, for me your departure
do not send me away!
do not send me far away, oh mother!

She was singing on the banks
of Udaipur
at the wide open lake
send me away not!
do not send me far away, oh mother!

I will be the parrot in your garden
I will live in your golden cage
you can seal it tight with a song of yours
do not send me away oh mother

why did you send me away?
I am your daughter
I am your singing daughter


 Pain like a blanket

Eating the sun and holding the moon,
the stars are my retinue.
- Chogyam Trunpa

The aroma of spices
The crosses over the lake
The crosses over the sea
The boundries across the sky

The day - is it
your gift to me or
mine to you?

A yellow day
but why when I am happy
pain rolls over me like blanket?


 Tale of the rain girl

May the Ocean benefit
Those who sail beyond the great sea.
- Chockyam Trungpa


The farmer girl sings

Give me rain, Black Cloud!
wet me completely, Black Cloud!
my crops are dry
Black Cloud, give me rain!

She begs for happiness
and love for her brothers
and her father
and her cow
and across the forest her voice
reaches the sea

But when she is living in the city of rain
her body is wet
and her heart goes
to where the peacock dances
on her thigh
to where the lilies grow
where she walks

Let my beloved come into my home
oh my beloved come to my house
I am a farmer's girl dressed
in gagara black
come to me my beloved
come to my dream
come with loosened hair and oared eye
come tonight!

but oh, please do not get lost
lost like sleep
lost like a far away lover
that’s never there

lost in the rain

no body knows the story after Pralaya, the doom
not even lake Udaipur
but me



 Letters to my love

In the waters of the mind.
Even the waves break against it
And shatter into light.
- Achaan Chah.

I write letters to my lover
and letting them float on the water of Udaipur
I can see him dancing fishing them out

My letters are little lighting lamps
floating in the night on palms
of Banjarin street dancers

I wrote the words of the letters
on black papers
using black ink
will my beloved be able to read them
in red?

I wrote in the languages of love
Sanskrit – the only one I know
but what do I know not
will he read my letters in love
too?

He is my lover
he isn’t my lover
he loves me
he loves me not
oh daisy flower of love
make my love true for him!

invisible as the black worlds
in colourful Samsara,
Nirvana written on white
with white ink
no! he is red as the night!

O my dear lake
help me, where are you?
Udaipur come rescue me!


 Aroma of love

Hears the limitless laughter of transcendent joy,
The poisonous snake becomes amrita
- Chogyam Trungpa

What is this, when I kept
3 ilayachi cardamoms on my palm?

We say farewell
the journey will be safe

you will come home
with the aroma of love!


***



Epilogue

Didn’t I tell you it was there?
You could have found it without trouble, after all.
- Louis Nordstrom.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet, my running feet
the camera, you do know!

- it is an ordinary one