Noon in Puri
Temple after temple:
They gleam white
Like flocks of white ostriches, arrived from who knows where;
The dead-still waters gleam white too,
And the sky;
The sun’s enormous orb blazes and seems to stand still,
As if it will never move from the zenith;
On the hot, golden-shimmering sand
Little houses, as if made of snow brought from the Himalayas –
They gleam white…, and burn:
Huge palm fans
Shield them from the sun’s fierce heat, in vain;
Ox after ox, humped, link, link
Down the wide road strewn with dust of gold,

Red and yellow garlands sway from slender horns
And from thick necks,
Elephants sluggishly lumber on and on and on
Somewhere,
God knows where,
A whole line,
Adorned, as if to carry the Raja’s retinue
Or the Maharajah’s wedding guests
Dark-skinned people lazily move past,
Wrapped in white,
And women:
Treading the hot road
Barefoot,
Many silver bangles coiled around their ankles
Like snakes or iron shackles…
Now and then, golden dust rises
When some carts or adorned ox-wagons
Pass by;
By the roadside, bagpipes play mournfully, cobras dance joyfully…
Sluggishly, lazily, slowly, no one’s in haste…
The sun’s enormous orb blazes and seems to stand still,
As if it will never move from the zenith:
Noon in Puri.

*
How come these hot plains are familiar to me,
And these dead-still waters,
White at noon,
And this sun, and the sun’s fiery arrows;
These scents rising from the scorched earth;
And every white temple, and every house that’s white;
And this sand, golden-yellow;
And the enormous palm fans;
And ox after ox, plodding, plodding along the road;
And the elephants that sluggishly lumber on, and on and on;
And these dark-skinned people
Wrapped in white;
And the women,
Treading the hot road
Barefoot!?
Behold!
Even their black hair is familiar to me,
Lush streams cascading from the Himalayas,
And eyes full of mystery, -
Sad as those of the Mother of my Lord,
Black and moist as overripe olives!...
Memory!
Some strange, blurred recollections live within me
As if between waking and dreaming…
In the world, even then, I existed …
Crystal urns still keep the ashes of my ancestors,
Tombs blue, vast and deep
Without a bottom:
The Ganges,
The Bay of Bengal –
Into which my spiritual being now dives…
In my memory, these same noons live on;
Through these restful plains my restless soul once wandered
And once, long ago, who knows when,
Same now as it was then,
And therefore, the entire vast region is familiar to me,
The most hidden corner,
Every path, every trail, every road
Like sorrow and grief,
And therefore, I look with love upon all
To which Mother Nature has given eternal life
As well as upon all that, by her law, must die.

Puri (Bengal, India), March 1927.

K Suncu za Sunce (To the Sun, for the Sun) pp. 20–22.