Kabir - Awaiting Love Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

I am faint from awaiting my lover's arrival:
my whole existence is focused on meeting.
Why the delay? I know I've no rival,
yet life is on hold till that moment of greeting.

I've wandered the desolate byways of scholarship,
I've loitered in temples and haunted the wise:
at the point of despair I was given a fillip -
a simple remark restored light to my eyes.

It felt like a letter from one whom I seek,
and made my heart race that my lover's nearby:
I knew then death's power had now become weak.
Kabir says: you see, dear friend, no one need die -

to open your heart is to find love awaiting
permission to enter and make you feel whole.
Your world's a reflexion of what you're creating:
if focused on love, there's no greater goal.


Original poem by the 15thC mystical poet Kabir (Bk1: 129) , translated by Rabindranath Tagore and Kshiti Mohan Sen (#51) . Versed bv MMS 21/11/10