I looked for You
Ever since You breathed individuality
Into my soul’s dew
And separated me from You.
Because I am the wave
Jerked out of Your sea and have
Ever tried myself to reunite
With Your boundless bosom of freedom and light;
Though lashed
And by other waves and by karma dashed
Yet again and again
The storm of my own desires o’er the cosmic main
Would send me sailing alone, sad,
With colliding brother waves, cruel, restive, mad.
I am the wavelet life in great unrest
Swimming on Your cosmic sea-breast,
And yet how elusive You are
So near and so far.
My little life swam in loneliness and worries
Beneath the vistas of centuries,
Beneath countless lights of milky way, moons and suns,
Beneath the darkness of many desires undone,
Beneath the fogs of intricate incarnations
And ‘neath clouds of doleful delusions.
Now at last I discovered
Just beneath my ignorance You lay covered,
‘Twas I who ignored You —
Not You, not You —
When You were so near
Kept by my absent mind so far —
The ocean of life
Through all my strife
Supporting, ever-sustaining
Ever-pursuing, ever watchfully remaining
To protect me from harm
Just beneath the truant wavelet of my little life
Blessed with Your charm.
— October 1937