BHAIRAV (THE WEIGHTLESS WEIGHT OF AIR)
Air.
Flowing river from mountains cooled,
And the passion of stars
Piercing the bow of Time.
Air.
Layering droop and singing yet
On the long slope of dawn.
Air.
Tinted blue yet.
Twisted warm and wan.
Twisted slow, rolling.
Air.
Dreaming pulses
As reasons’ reflection
But vague yet.
Vague and languid,
At edges stalled.
Moistened in sleep,
But not.
But not.
Air.
Piled deep
Down to the stars.
Life sways hanging, drifting.
Trees with their hair
Loose and swaying
Singing, singing,
Down to the starlit voids
Hanging the tidal edges
The endless full innocent darkness.
Air.
The trees shape
Single syllables
Howled whisps of vowels
Finding froth from feeling.
Air
Patterned, pressured, punctured
Parcelled.
Air
Twisted and released,
Spread out and stretching,
Tidal current
The vapours caress
Their gradient glacial moments.
Air
Sun bright now
Shifting shimmering.
It suffers all thought.
Turning about
Returning it to silence.
Air.
Sun-bright now,
Spirit-filled
Song-filled
The tongue of gods
Hungry for this and that.
It will not
It will not.
It will
It will.
Invisible lover of every surface.
Air.
It stretches, it pulses.
Gods are born from air.
They flow in and out,
Grow fists of nothing.
They flow in and out.
Gods born from
The turbulent throbs of air.
Movement shiver shafts.
Silence
Silence.
–
Bhairav is a well-known Indian raag of the early morning. I have only recently grown to love it and its variations. Perhaps the tense sharps and flats put me off. It has the energy of cool space, of heights, of growing light, of distance, of precise wing-tips, of soaring wings, of the dip and soar of red kites. This is a sort of verbal alap – a slow exploration of the moods and directions of morning air, here in the mountains.
simonhlilly 