you may milk her but at this appointed hour
with this can
two-spans-full
if you give her fresh grass and barley
before she goes
'cause she is bespoken to patience

CAREER

for my son Nachiketas, born without hope on September 2, 1968 - the Year of upheavals

[The story of Nachiketas (after whom the Fire Sacrifice in hindu worship is named) - and which is consecrated in the metaphysical scripture: Katha Upanishad, around the year CE - epitomises much of the essence of Hindu religio-philosophical-thought. Nachiketas' father, a philanthropist, slips up in his donations by offering old infertile and sick cows to the gods. Nachiketas remonstrates and the father damns him by wishing him off to the domain of Death, guarded by the God YAMA. Nachiketas waited three days and nights at Death's abode, and upon his arrival, Yama was abashed to see the famished lad awaiting him, so he offered him three wishes which he said he would fulfill.
Nachiketas wanted first peace with his father; then to know the secret of the Fire Sacrifice, and finally, the secret of Life after Death. After much hesitation over the last query, Yama then expounds that the syllable OM signifying Ultimate Reality, that is, the BRAHMAN and its concomitant the ATMAN as the individual soul whose realisation as the true knowledge of SELF will release each individual soul from the Cycle of Re-Births through MOKSHA or the merger with the BRAHMAN, the Supreme Creator.
This poem hints at the path one such seeker should take...]

Tether the cow to the post of your patience
and wait
First make ready the field in which you choose to let her loose
There where no lilacs grow
nor lotuses in the pond of your astrological gaze
If you haven't enough cut-grass in the loft
Make sure your sickle doesn't rake through touch-me-not thorns and razor-sharp lallang
You may only prepare the pasturing ground

You cannot make your cow browse in it
all her dogged years
her udder bitten
fangs sunk in stealth
milk mixed with venom
milched in terror
suckling in fear

You may not clear your fields
of
toads
snails
snakes
or centipedes

They are the legitimate heirs of the land
where
you plan to graze your cow
You may only tend to her when she comes home
if she comes
at all
by her own will
acknowledging not a master
but an inherited contract
thus

you may milk her but at this appointed hour
with this can
two-spans-full
if you give her fresh grass and barley
before she goes
'cause she is bespoken to patience

©T.Wignesan, Paris,
April 18, 1992
[from the collection : back to background material, 1993]