Poem 53
In the Far East they are driving out the dead religions;
In the West there are the Damn-your-authority protest legions.
The Master, ‘in his inimitable way,’ is house-cleaning before
Installing a new image of Himself for men to adore.
Send into all lands the news that the Ancient One is here
To level mountains of ignorance, dry up oceans of fear.
The Ancient One, God-Man, Creator of the creation
Will again makes the stars envious of little Earth — His Song-station.
Man is to be born again. Doctor! When you cut the umbilical cord
Say, Ram tha kyonkay Baba hai. – Send into all lands the glad word.
God-Man has now fed Silence for four decades — damming back Grace;
Moulding the new eyes of our unborn hearts to see His face.
Send the word into all lands: Prepare for the ultimate violence
That will shatter the past when the Word of His lips breaks the seal on His Silence.
Writing at the time when Mao was suppressing traditional religions in China and youthful protest was shaking the state in France and America, Francis is in prophetic mode seeing these signs as evidence of Baba’s ‘house-cleaning’. He pays a certain tribute to the unique and unexpected ways in which the Avatar worked and still works, His ‘inimitable way’. Perhaps a little poignancy here because the massive spreading of the news about the new Avatar has not had the open impact the poet anticipated. There has been no dramatic apocalyptic awakening of the masses, no dramatic dam bursting of energy. The events here forecasted are still awaited by some whilst others see individual transformations as being the operating mode; ‘Moulding the new eyes of our unborn hearts to see His face’, a wonderful line, perhaps seems nearer the mark to what is happening.
Like the early Christians awaiting the kingdom of God, our expectations have had to take a more esoteric and individual interpretation of this new birth. This is not to say that this proclamation in the poem won’t one day be accurate. And certainly the poem makes a thrilling announcement of the shattering significance of the Advent. Francis repeats the injunction to send the word into all lands –an echo of the saying in Mark 16:15 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” And the mention of violence and of breaking the seal in the last verse suggests the apocalyptic imagery of Revelations 6.
‘Ram tha kyonkay Baba hai’ means Because Baba is, Ram was.