Skip to main content

Of Rebellion and Revolution

Cattle are important. And because cattle are important, cowherds are important. There has to be someone to milk the cattle and clean the dung. It doesn't benefit a king to kill cowherds.

Which is why, when the rebellion comes, it comes from the cowherd. He may be dark-skinned and wear feathers in his hair and play bamboo flutes and spend the day far too alone to gossip and plot, but he observes. He watches the oxen drag the plough, the crack of the whip behind them. But he also looks at the same bulls in the spring, locking horns in fierce combat. He watches the cow obey the hurr-hurrs as she is led along the road, but he also sees how she becomes a tigress when her calf is in danger. The same bullocks that solemnly drag the overloaded cart, now maddened, gore the drover.

The cowherd observes, and he learns that the weak can become strong. He learns that sickles can become swords, that the humble wooden stick can break a spinal cord. He may be a king's human beast; but listen to the notes of the flute, and tremble. In those notes, crowns are tossed away.

in the creak
of the old gibbet
a war cry
that shook the earth
but not the throne

(Published in Haibun Today September 2014)

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CST Station at 7:45 PM on Sunday 21 December, 2008

winter clouds this silent scream in my eyes The loo stinks, the tap runs and can't be closed. The risk of dying of a urinary tract infection or asphyxiation is still the same. The sole policeman visible, young and unarmed, is ostensibly guarding the ladies' first class. The rather bright lights are a change though, but they seem to make the place seem a wee bit less crowded. Seem. There are people sitting on the platform, waiting for their trains. Many in their Sunday best. Popcorn-sellers, peanut-sellers, kulfi-sellers are trying to get me to shed some money towards them, even as I wait for the samosa-seller. yellow leaves the old woman sweeps up yesterday It's getting on eight (time for the Titwala Fast to leave), and last-minute boarders are jumping in. The popcorn-seller is taking his last chances before he moves to the 8:13 Khopoli Slow. I don't know how many of the guys around me are pass-holders or even bothered to buy tickets. I do know the police didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Haiku in India: A few glimpses from the past 12 months

This year has been an eventful one for India, with respect to haiku and related genres. A new journal, an actively subscribed kukai, a forthcoming conference and several individual activities have meant that India has been an exciting country to be in if you are a haijin. Activities in the past year: The year began with Dr. Angelee Deodhar, the doyenne of India haiku (who has been writing since 1989), giving a talk to the Poetry Society of Hyderabad, which was very well-received. On the following day, assisted by Paresh Tiwari, she conducted a day long haiku workshop in Hyderabad. The workshop was dedicated to Bill Higginson and she told the participants that they should use The Haiku Handbook as a Bible to learn haiku. As Ireland was the guest nation, Gabriel Rosenstock was there too. Then in New Delhi on the 27th of January, Dr. Angelee Deodhar conducted a two and half hour bilingual workshop in a school meant for slum children. 45 children sat on a thin durree on the ground and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Immanence

What the six Brandenburg Concertos do to me is this. They simply fill me with music, surround me, isolate me, gently tease me away from my cares into their Elysium; they permeate every nerve, till each has become, as Khusrau wrote, a taut string vibrating with the sound of the universe itself; they at once excite and becalm, distress and elate, arrest and move; they hurt me, they make me feel small before the universe and then they heal me and make me one with the universe. Add to the experience my hormones coursing adrenaline and testosterone, and sleep deprivation and the flush of success and the inebriation of starvation mixed with coffee—something strange happens, I am at a sudden high of consciousness, at once depressed and euphoric, for a fleeting minute—nirvana. dust patterns . . . the ghostly outline of my turntable (Published in Haibun Today  September 2014)
Post a Comment
Read more