The Emperor Tree by Prithwindra Mukherjee

(9 December 1950—19 November 1973)

Wherever I be, in Paris, Pamplona or Prague,

My awareness moves about with the Emperor of Trees,

Overweighed, ever-green in shadowy Aprilling leaves

Sheltering the timeless sleep of a Godly love.

Motherer of myriad planets and milky ways,

She who had assumed that body of radiating Grace

To meet upon earth, as a mortal wooing her Prince,

The consuming fire of terrestrial transformation…

Fire, indeed, though lotus were his eyes,

Capable of snatching from the nethermost Inconscient’s core

The stolen secrets of the solar diamond rays,

Causing a nuclear firework of Consciousness.

He had been steering for inward oceans where Heaven was not…

On a Honey-Moon, down the vortex of Oblivion,

They set a-blaze the Memory’s metamorphosed sky

And mirror in Hades the steel blue lakes where Goddesses revel.

Wherever I be, in Lausanne, or Morangis or Naples,

Beside Alpine summits or in supernal Azure caverns,

Schizophrenic, transplanting the Emperor of Trees

I shelter the timeless sleep of my Godly Love…

[From the author’s Danse cosmique, p. 63]