Sometimes I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night,
Thinking that I was getting your benediction of permitting me to die soon.

Long years I have spent chasing the world and you on earth;
Leaving me exhausted, disenchanted, and soulless.

If you were to allow me to die soon, it would not be that you are cruel;
But that you are imaginative and soul full;
You understand that the endless procession of life
Can be emptying and soulless.
My death is the ultimate relief to both of us.

People do not understand that death can be liberation from the imprisoned life;
Actually, my life is not imprisoned, but it is very restrained;
Your love pulls me wherever it is and so its uni-directionality restrains me.
The scope of my life remains limited.

Freedom is the fourth dimension of life,
Whose benevolence many human beings cannot understand.
Death imparts a freedom to life,
Bringing it closer to infinity.

Remember, when you took my hand
And guided me through all the terraces of Shalimar Bagh.
That was the freedom of the worldly order:
To savor beauty and creativity,
But the freedom in death is of spiritual dimension:
It is the liberation of the soul.

One day you kissed me and said that
From that moment onward I would be immortal;
I like immorality but for a living being there can be no immorality –
The only true immorality is in death.

Still, iconic, and yet penetrating,
Death is a beauty enshrined in eternity.

Death loves without fear of social form and constrains of time;
Death is love that can never stain, wrinkle, and lose form.

Be merciful dearest and permit to merge with the un-turbulent universe of death,
So that I am forever with you.

Suffern, N.Y., 9.11.12
www.kaulscorner.com
maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com