Kabirdas Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The son of a Brahmin widow
Who abandoned him
As for worldly shame
The newly-born babe
Which but the childless weaver couple
Gathered with courage
To foster him up

And the same child grew up
As Kabirdas
Into the weaver’s family,
An abandoned Brahmin boy
But professed in a different faith
But the quest for knowledge
Took him to Ramananda
Who just preached on the ghats of Benares

And that too marking the thirst for,
Giving him the Ram-nam mantra
As how to give to,
Not of,
Keeping the time-spirit in mind
But gave he,
Yielded to his temptation,
The thirst for, desire for knowledge,
The knowledge of the self

And it is in Kabirdas
Hinduism and Islam mingle with,
Culminating in a nicer fusion,
A synthesis rarely to be seen elsewhere,
A diya burning on the mazar of a Sufi saint

A founder of the Kabir Panthis,
A Vaishanvite Muslim weaver,
The adopted child is one such
In whom the echoes
Of the assimilation of Ram and Rahima
Can be felt in with so much intimacy

And the mere touch of the guru Ramananda
Exclaiming, “Ram! Ram! ”
After having trodden him unknowingly
On the Ganga ghats
And the disciple too in the hope of
Lying to be touched to break into rhythmically

The body as if a lyre
And the mere touch of a guru
Striking the chords with Hari-nam
And with it
The sweet notes breaking forth
In many a melody and tuning of own.