betaphilings

“Let me light my lamp,” says the star, “and never debate if it will help to remove the darkness.” — M. Tagore, 1928

We’d sold the house and shipped all our furnishings to the new place. We’d spent our last day together at the marina. In the morning, Tom would drive “Miss Gigi” east along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline toward Port Arthur. The kids and I would drive the car and meet him there. It was our last night in Port Aransas.

Jill was almost two and Jay was almost three. I had just turned forty. It was late July and the fireflies were out. One flew into my hair and got caught as I was walking toward the door with the children. Good thing, because the electricity was turned off in the house. Without the lightening bug, I would have had a hard time opening the door with a baby in my arms.

Inside the darkness, as the lightening bug flashed, the entire room filled with the most beautiful ambient light I’d ever seen. A sense of peace and wonder and gratitude settled over me. A blissfulness.

Thank you, I thought. Thank you, firefly.

The children were tired from a day in the sun and water. The drive to the house had made them groggy. I put them on the air mattress and they went right to sleep, wearily aware that a wondrous thing was taking place.

I lay down beside them, marveling at the truth. On a night when I had no electricity, a firefly flew into my life.

It was a magical moment, the kind that makes you certain there is magic in the world. This is the memory I go to when I want to feel supremely loved.

Here is a supremely lovely poem by Tagore titled “The Unnamed Light.”

1
I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.

2
“Let me light my lamp,” says the star,
“and never debate
if it will help to remove the darkness.”

3
The flame met the earthen lamp in me,
and what a great marvel of light!

4
Between the shores of Me and Thee
there is the loud ocean, my own surging self,
which I long to cross.

5
Life sends up in blades of grass
its silent hymn of praise
to the unnamed Light.

6
The butterfly counts not months
but moments,
and has time enough.

7
Let my love, like sunlight,
surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.

8
Birth is from
the mystery of night
into the greater mystery of day.

9
Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark.

10
My life’s empty flute waits for its final music
like the primal darkness before the stars came out.

11
The world is the ever-changing foam
that floats on the surface of a sea of silence.

12
I leave no trace of wings in the air,
but I am glad I have had my flight.

13
Before the end of my journey
may I reach within myself
the one which is the all,
leaving the outer shell
to float away with the drifting multitude
upon the current of chance and change.

14
When death comes and whispers to me,
“Thy days are ended,”
let me say to him, “I have lived in love
and not in mere time.”
He will ask, “Will thy songs remain?”
I shall say, “I know not, but this I know
that often when I sang I found my eternity.” 

————

SOURCE: Fireflies, by Rabindranath Tagore,
The Macmillan Co, 1928 / Rupa & Co., 2002

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 11:45 pm and is filed under My stories, My poems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.