“Communication” by Arjava with Sri Aurobindo’s Comments

Ebbing and waning of joy, the day estranged:
Here, petalled evening droops;
Below sky-rim the petals have drifted—all is changed

To a dim listless stalk where Twilight stoops
Horizonward; and then
The black scorpion, Night, lifts claws of loneliness and loops

The zenith and all the sky
(Its venomed blackness is in the life-blood of men)
… O then, love-armed cry,

Bring with compulsive dream the moon’s foreglow
Over the difficult edge
Of being, that eastward-straining hopes may know

Lit pearl of untarrying pledge,—
Counsel, and laughter, and undissembling eyes.
Time-tameless thought shall dredge

Wide welcome for the glimpsed sail of moonrise,
The ship of understanding and conjoined wills,
The keel of trust from far-off friendly skies.

2 April 1934

Sri Aurobindo’s Comment:
“A very finely built poem in every way, diction, rhythm and the working out of the idea and image. Lines 3-7 and 15, 16 and the expression “Bring… over the difficult edge of being” I find especially original and vividly forceful in image and phrase.“