Morning in Delhi
Morning in Delhi
> So bear patiently that which they say, and hymn the praise of thy Lord before the rising of the sun … that haply thou mayest be content.
Morning has broken but the day still sits softly shrouded on the edge of its bed, my mind the same. Birdsong brought me to wake, with this prayer opened the day. Words come only in a trickle, the silence of night still reigns. This the place from which all comes, from which nothing can be brought by force but need be awaited patiently. We must start ever from where we are, and I am not here.
A mind amassed of words, still slumbering somewhere within. They follow the orbits allotted to them by habit, are slow to change direction otherwise. This is a new shape, a change that only slowly comes. Some spark is necessary to start this movement, some exchange of energy with the environment; some heat which is yet to come. The morning’s coolness caresses my bare legs, dances at my cuffs.
The birds have nowhere to go, nor need they be anywhere right now. They tell me that I am the same, their aimless wandering is my own. This is the shape of a day yet unbroken, a stillness in me which only my reason would wish to break—but reason is the lesser partner in such affairs, serves some higher master deep within. Here I can only wait.
What day is this, what world to come? This mystery must be danced out in its own way, which the feet know and the mind may only follow. A shape determined ever by some other than myself.
The limit comes to mind: hands pressed to a glass, a mirror, metal painted behind. They say the way is to leap through here, but the mind in this as all asks of the body; it is the body which ever decides. This body is not mine, nor the will to leap, but all is borrowed: “Lord, let me not impede Your movement through me.”
An offer may come, to be accepted or otherwise, and for this we must be silent; that we may listen for an opportunity to present itself. God is obscured by the noise with which we enshroud ourselves, a man screams half-groaning in the street below. The teashop should be open soon.