The Wait Poem by Prathibha Nandakumar

The Wait



The warrior makes demands
First of all, upon himself.



Kindly wait, you are in a queue.
You are not the first one to arrive
Not the last too

Fall in line
Be still
Wait.

The I Ching said

The footprints run crisscross
The mountain rests upon the earth.
A large fruit is still uneaten.
There is no water in the lake.
One sits oppressed under a bare tree.
That which is bright rises twice.

Predictions are a different matter altogether
You are sincere
Yet you are being obstructed.
When a woman loses the curtain
of her carriage.
do not run after it,
On the seventh day you will get it.
The way is in the middle.

The middle way, how to take it?
Sigil initiated passion.
Its coming is sudden;
It flames up, dies down, is thrown away.
It has nothing that would
cause it to be accepted.

If one is seriously intent
order emerges out of confusion.
If benefaction is not yet seen
focus on the coming together.
To feel caressed without being touched
To be bruised from a distance
To be blessed by the seen god
There are no ulterior motives
In the midst of the greatest
obstructions.

Conflict. It is humiliating.

When you have something to say,
It is not believed.

They say the truth of a warrior
Is accessible, yet dignified.
Acting without prearrangement,
It cannot go backward,
It cannot go forward.
Nothing serves to further.
You do not travel through the air.
You have no feel of the earth
You receive him
in virtue, energetically.

The Power of the Great shows
itself in the fact that one pauses.

He has not stirred from his red chair.

Demand to draw every bit of the inner waters
Before you step out of line and though dismissed

You meet with praise

Hence fall in line
Be still
Wait.

The master will take you in a minute.




22.1.2008

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