Beloved

When my disquiet is great
And the world is strung taut against me,
I feel a great need for her –
And she has never disappointed me.

 
I do not know where my beloved is now –

Even who she is;
But I feel her –
It has been so from the earliest times.

 
I remember her rising from the Dal Lake,
Piercing its surface and walking on it
As a white angel,
When she got close to me she vanished.

 
I see her in the curvature of mountain peaks,
In the music of the raindrops hitting slated terrace,

In the splash of the cool breeze skating the cheeks,

In the stillness of the cloudless moonlit sky.

 
When I was lonely in youth
She would sit with me silently –
Never advising, never questioning,
Always consoling.

 
In the great defeats of my life

She made sure I felt her presence.
I crossed my chasms with difficulties,
But never lost faith.

 
As my journey is coming to end
I see her more,
It seems she will hold my hand
Till the other shore.

 
 
Suffern,
New York,
July 8, 2016
www.kaulscorner.com
maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com