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When in the Great Darkness the desire for knowledge surged,
From the light of that Whim the dawn and the stars emerged.
Then I and the other sons of God had to hurry up
To join the stars’ song with our shout—and each fashion a cup.
Alas! alas! The shout died away into a groan
As each of us with his brightness got locked in dull stone.
Only God knows how long it took the hammers of sun and the fingers of rain
To release me from that prison and bury me in fresh pain;
How long to complete all the evolutionary stages
And to record in my flesh the history of those ages;
How long from the first shout of love till now to fashion my cup for his wine’s grace,
To fashion my song-mirror to reflect some likeness of his beloved face.
Beloved! I am too weary to continue further this journey—
I will stay here in this dust singing and leave the rest to your mercy.
Maybe we all feel a great weariness when we contemplate the enormous evolutionary climb; something of the enormous effort and patience needed comes through in the poem. The shout of love is the burst of light energy at the creation, into which all the embryonic souls stream out in Meher Baba’s story. And not just His story, we all carry the whole history in our flesh.
The song-mirror is not just the lila of the poem but the great consummation of the mirror of love towards which we are all heading, after so long.
Again as in the last poem a helpless surrender is the only sane response. What high humour that the sons of light have been imprisoned for so long, having to fashion a cup, that is, a body,capable of receiving his grace!