a poem in my pocket

Gitanjali, Song Offerings sounds amazing but can you bring it back to its essential meaning and create a haiku with it? That’s the goal for Carpe Diem’s weekend distillation…

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light,
and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds
leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach
the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before
I shut them and said `Here art thou!’
The question and the cry `Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand streams
and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!’

© Rabindranath Tagore (taken from “Gitanjali”)

my distillation haiku:

inner universe
who comprehends one’s own soul?
recognition’s tears

and i add 2 lines for tanka:

find identity in God
Creator, greater “I AM”