Garland of Rhythms

Strangely, the melodies sway—
the stone once whispered to the water, stay.
 
From the mountain, wind descends,
cooling the deep floor of the stream.
 
Along the mountain’s slope,
the thin-bodied fall of a waterfall
keeps time in triple beat,
as the Hindol of the Bhairavi River
slides down beside the ravine.
 
Quietly it arrives—
deep solitude in the hush of Bahar, Kedara, Khamaj.
This path ends in a forest of still hogla reeds,
beside a silent cremation ground.
 
In the life-giving Raga Kalyan,
tulsi leaves drift
with ashes and dust.
 
Here, people die
by the river and the sea,
yet the sustenance of love
finds its own cool refuge—
a voice rich with fierce hope,
flowering rhythm in the heart,
in joy or in pain.
 
In the flute of Vrindavan’s music
dawns the Bahar of Gandhari.
In the sky, the monsoon’s song,
ancient Spring plays again—
Chaiti solemn in the kash blossoms,
dew-bodied over the fields.
 
The words of rhythm climb,
the Sahana-Bahar in life’s measure—
its depth holding the limit of cold.
Yet the fire-arrow grows fierce—
in life’s symbolic verse.