THE RAGPICKER’S TUNE

To the one

Who walks about in rags

The raga doesn’t speak so much

Is it a fault that the ragtime or blues

And the smoke and passions

Of their own mind

And their pathways

To the other

The tune of which

Only they could find

Were more central to them than the correctness

Of the methods

Of the pundits

Because so unstructured it was

That method cowered and kept away

When it was up and moving about

In the street.

Neither did the ragpicker

A Khwaja Safa of the streets

Complain so loud

And fill his song with hatred

Or empty praises for a god

That he had failed to find in himself or in others

And hence could not meet elsewhere.

What would have been his tune?

The falcon’s soft cry

The tunes of Miles or Kuttappan

Or that pinnacles from which the high- browed

Exalted themselves and threw at others

The contempt in their minds?

Where would the infinite open up?

In the structures and limits set by men

Or in the making of the tune

That blends well

Into the rhapsody of the many?