This poem originally appeared in Along the River.
Near Dwaravati, on the Beach
He faces me in some glittering moonlit mindscape
—I almost feel the sea breeze and the still-warm sand—
His ageless eyes full of power that almost glows.
“Hello, Nara,” he murmurs. “Here we always meet,
Near the water that was once milk. Do you know me?”
And for a moment I see it, the intaglio that is Krishna…
I become aware of my own filigree, trillions of silvery lines,
And I am Nara, that first mind in which danced
The very first ideas,
Contemplating the god that arises in smoky traceries
From the newly created me.
“Friend of my mind…”
I begin, but the moment is gone,
Just an evanescent after-image
Fading like all the other fleeting apotheoses.
Yet I bend my focus inward,
Plunge into Brahman once again.
David Bowles