THE DESERTS
R.Y. DESHPANDE
Past the weird Arabian nights
The caravan of dream-symbols
Arrives on the inward curve
Where the date-palms burn
Into flames of other
images.
Once long ago behind stretches
Of those endless hollow sands
Were heard strange ripple-sounds
Of rivers that flowed from mirages
Watering gardens of the
Pharaohs.
But now the deserts inundated
By the streams of the new truth
Give to them, across time’s sorrows,
Across all the unbirthed
ages,
Songs that have taken a turn
Of topaz-winds pyramiding
The city of light’s delights,
As if for nothingness God had lived.
Democracy without
self-control
and restraint turns into anachy.
Discipline is the very
essence
of democracy.
Speech,