There are always poems.

Some events; some memories; some recollections don’t get any easier, any less confronting with the elapse of time. They are still too fresh, too raw to be easily cast aside.

At times, such as the present, when recent past events cast a long shadow over my life, I am drawn to poets magisterial use of words to express the inexpressible. 

For reasons that I cannot explain – possibly because of its very early, childhood introduction – poetry has always stirred, within me, a deep well of emotion and intense imagery. Poets use of words are like a cry from the heart, that bring forth both pain and a salve to ease the pain.

One such poet is the Bengali polymath and Nobel prizewinner, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). From his 1913 publication, Gitanjali, a very short poem, number 87, hit me with a body blow that left me breathless and deeply moved.

87.

“In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room;

I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my Lord, and seeking her I have come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish – no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears. 
Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.”