By Pompen Hantralkool
Explicated by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
Explicated by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
Text
A Ringing Bell
A waterfall drops
A gibbon howls
An insect
The echo goes on
Only in memory
A waterfall drops. It is a river or a stream suddenly falling from a steep height. May be the poet does not see the waterfall but hears its thundering noise. For example the waterfall named Ban Gioc in Vietnam hitting the rocks can be heard from afar. May be a waterfall is drizzling on to the rocks or pounding the rocks with soft intermittent bursts. The white noise of the waterfall masks distracting sounds and lulls ones brain to sleep or meditation. While a waterfall is being heard gibbons voices could be there. Gibbons are found all over Vietnam in the most northerly subtropical forests as well as in the lowland forests of the south. And their voices are mostly duets between a male gibbon and female gibbon. While the sound of the waterfall is continuous the voice of the gibbons on the background of the waterfall is discrete.. While the sound of the waterfall might suggest of one reality permeating the differences of the existence, the sound of the duet of gibbons suggests the dichotomy of the existence dangling from the tree of the one reality .While the monotony radiated by the waterfall or one reality speaks of an existence which is cold and where there is no diversity and variety, the voice of gibbons speak of the existence of two souls exchanging warm love between them. And now the poet hears an insect.. It might be the cricket the bee the bumblebee the ant the mosquito the locust and so on. We hear as it were bass or low pitch sound in the waterfall and midrange pitch in the voice of the gibbons and high pitch in the insect and they together constitute timbre. The vibrations in turn set in motion frequency waves called harmonics. Here is a poem that approximates harmonics where different sounds mingle into a complex and wonderful pattern.May be the harmonics enthralls the poet during his sojourns in the woodlands far from the madding crowds ignoble strifes .When the poet leaves the woodland the sounds are no longer heard. But the echo goes on in memory. Memory is the faculty of the mind which stores and remembers information.The sounds heard in Nature sink deep in the poets mind. Back from the clutch of Nature the poet perhaps being pent up in a city like Hanoi plunges into his subconscious. Or else the subconscious all of a sudden shows up suspending the conscious mind of the poet for a time.The subconscious mind could be likened to a forest where waterfalls and apes and insects are heard. They only evoke the silence created by the waterfall or the gibbons in the being of the poet. The waterfall and the gibbons and the insects are the voice of silence.Thus a silence fills the mind of the poet. And amidst that silence the poet can hear the overmind rhythm in which the water fall the song of the gibbon or the sound of the insect are sublated ever rolling on in the existence impelling all thinking things and all objects of all thought. Read in the Indian context the poem evokes in us the creative logos or the Om that presently calms our restless minds and lifts them to some supramundane plane
The echo goes on
Only in memory
A waterfall drops. It is a river or a stream suddenly falling from a steep height. May be the poet does not see the waterfall but hears its thundering noise. For example the waterfall named Ban Gioc in Vietnam hitting the rocks can be heard from afar. May be a waterfall is drizzling on to the rocks or pounding the rocks with soft intermittent bursts. The white noise of the waterfall masks distracting sounds and lulls ones brain to sleep or meditation. While a waterfall is being heard gibbons voices could be there. Gibbons are found all over Vietnam in the most northerly subtropical forests as well as in the lowland forests of the south. And their voices are mostly duets between a male gibbon and female gibbon. While the sound of the waterfall is continuous the voice of the gibbons on the background of the waterfall is discrete.. While the sound of the waterfall might suggest of one reality permeating the differences of the existence, the sound of the duet of gibbons suggests the dichotomy of the existence dangling from the tree of the one reality .While the monotony radiated by the waterfall or one reality speaks of an existence which is cold and where there is no diversity and variety, the voice of gibbons speak of the existence of two souls exchanging warm love between them. And now the poet hears an insect.. It might be the cricket the bee the bumblebee the ant the mosquito the locust and so on. We hear as it were bass or low pitch sound in the waterfall and midrange pitch in the voice of the gibbons and high pitch in the insect and they together constitute timbre. The vibrations in turn set in motion frequency waves called harmonics. Here is a poem that approximates harmonics where different sounds mingle into a complex and wonderful pattern.May be the harmonics enthralls the poet during his sojourns in the woodlands far from the madding crowds ignoble strifes .When the poet leaves the woodland the sounds are no longer heard. But the echo goes on in memory. Memory is the faculty of the mind which stores and remembers information.The sounds heard in Nature sink deep in the poets mind. Back from the clutch of Nature the poet perhaps being pent up in a city like Hanoi plunges into his subconscious. Or else the subconscious all of a sudden shows up suspending the conscious mind of the poet for a time.The subconscious mind could be likened to a forest where waterfalls and apes and insects are heard. They only evoke the silence created by the waterfall or the gibbons in the being of the poet. The waterfall and the gibbons and the insects are the voice of silence.Thus a silence fills the mind of the poet. And amidst that silence the poet can hear the overmind rhythm in which the water fall the song of the gibbon or the sound of the insect are sublated ever rolling on in the existence impelling all thinking things and all objects of all thought. Read in the Indian context the poem evokes in us the creative logos or the Om that presently calms our restless minds and lifts them to some supramundane plane
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