Truth's a hymn : For Amarjeet and Gayatri

The primal source, first vines that exploded

into life, gone dormant now, but nothing’s dead.

The truth’s a hymn, whether each sang or not

and love is truth, even if they left it unsaid.

The tavern’s full, but there’s always a spot

for those ones that the great patrons forgot.

The crowds nudge closer to clear a little space

and the Saki sets a cup and pours a shot.

There’s always love, and truth, and a small place

for those who cannot sing, don’t know the ways.

The vine knows to bloom and offers its pressed

red gifts to those who love, and self-efface.

And the Saki knows them too, all those blessed.

Love’s immortal but too rarely expressed;

but she knows that nothing’s ever wasted,

nothing’s lost from the goblet of each guest.

This poem, based on the Eastern fixed form rubai, goes out today for Amarjeet (Amar), the husband of Gayatri Gahlaut.  Amar is a keen golfer and a sports lover, and Gayatri is a poetry fan. They live in Delhi and are fond grandparents to Reyansh.

Gayatri won herself a blog post here in a contest, and she dedicated the prize to her husband.  An amazing uncanny coincidence, as love is on my mind right now. Well, to be honest, love is always on my mind, but it seems to have a special weight and texture this season J Gayatri’s name (which is the name of a particular goddess in the Hindu pantheon, and also used to refer to a hymn to the same deity), and Amar’s name (which means immortal) combine to form the prompt for this post.  Amr, which is a popular name here in the Middle East where I live, incidentally, derives from the root-word for ‘long life’ in Arabic, another uncanny coincidence that blew my mind. 

I hope both Amarjeet and Gayatri enjoy reading the poem as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

This unique contest was part of a pay-it-forward initiative at Buzzaria, my thanks to the team there for this opportunity to participate.