A Cowherding girl

The plums tasted
sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl-
but what manners! To chew into each! She was ungainly,
low-caste, ill mannered and dirty,
but the god took the
fruit she'd been sucking.
Why? She'd knew how to love.
She might not distinquish
splendor from filth
but she'd tasted the nectar of passion.
Might not know any Veda,
but a chariot swept her away-
now she frolics in heaven, esctatically bound
to her god.
The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira,
will save anyone
who can practice rapture like that-
I myself in a previous birth
was a cowherding girl
at Gokul.

poem by Mirabai
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I am pale with longing for my beloved;

I am pale with longing for my beloved;
People believe I am ill.
Seizing on every possible pretext,
I try to meet him 'by accident.'

They have sent for a country doctor;
He grabs my arm and prods it;
How can he diagnose my pain?
It's in my heart that I am afflicted.

Go home, country doctor,
Don't address me by my name;
It's the name of God that has wounded me,
Don't force your medicines on me.

The sweetness of his lips is a pot of nectar,
That's the only curd for which I crave;
Mira's Lord is Giridhar Naagar.
He will feed me nectar again and again.

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poem by Mirabai
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O my friends

O my friends,
What can you tell me of Love,
Whose pathways are filled with strangeness?
When you offer the Great One your love,
At the first step your body is crushed.
Next be ready to offer your head as his seat.
Be ready to orbit his lamp like a moth giving in to the light,
To live in the deer as she runs toward the hunter's call,
In the partridge that swallows hot coals for love of the moon,
In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies.
Like a bee trapped for life in the closing of the sweet flower,
Mira has offered herself to her Lord.
She says, the single Lotus will swallow you whole.

[Translated by Jane Hirshfield]

poem by Mirabai
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O my mind

O my mind,
Worship the lotus feet of the Indestructible One!
Whatever thou seest twixt earth and sky
Will perish.
Why undertake fasts and pilgrimages?
Why engage in philosophical discussions?
Why commit suicide in Banaras?
Take no pride in the body,
It will soon be mingling with the dust.
This life is like the sporting of sparrows,
It will end with the onset of night.
Why don the ochre robe
And leave Home as a sannyasi?
Those who adopt the external garb of a Jogi,
But do not penetrate to the secret,
Are caught again in the net of rebirth.
Mira's Lord is the courtly Giridhara.
Deign to sever, O Master.
All the knots in her heart.

poem by Mirabai
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No one knows my invisible life

No one knows my invisible life.
Pain
and madness for Rama.
Our wedding bed is high up
in the gallows.
Meet him?
If the dark healer comes,
we'll negotiate the hurt.
I love the man who takes care
of cows. The cowherd.
Cowherd and dancer.
My eyes are drunk,
worn out from making love
with him. We are one.
I am now his dark color.
People notice me, point fingers at me.
They see my desire,
since I'm walking about like a lunatic.
I'm wiped out, gone.
Yet no one knows I live with my prince,

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The Heat of Midnight Tears

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

[Translated by Robert Bly]

poem by Mirabai
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Why Mira Can't Come Back to Her Old House

The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira's body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries.
I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;
and now you want me to climb on a jackass?
Try to be serious

[Translated by Robert Bly]

poem by Mirabai
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Strange Is The Path When You Offer Love

Do not mention the name of love,
O my simple-minded companion.
Strange is the path
When you offer your love.
Your body is crushed at the first step.

If you want to offer love
Be prepared to cut off your head
And sit on it.
Be like the moth,
Which circles the lamp and offers its body.
Be like the deer, which, on hearing the horn,
Offers its head to the hunter.
Be like the partridge,
Which swallows burning coals
In love of the moon.
Be like the fish
Which yields up its life
When separated from the sea.
Be like the bee,

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Your Slander Is Sweet

Rana, to me your slander is sweet.

Some praise me, some blame me. I

go the other way.

On the narrow path, I found God’s

people. What should I turn back for?

I am learning wisdom among the

wise, and the wicked look at me

with malice.

Mira’s Lord is Giridhar Nagar.

Let the wicked burn in the kitchen fire.

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Mine is the Lifter of Mountains

Mine is the lifter of mountains, the

cowherd, and none other.

O sadhus! there is no other--I have seen

the whole world.

I left brothers, I left kindred, I left

all I had.

Sitting near the sadhus, I lost worldly shame.

I looked at the devotees and I was one with

them; I looked at the world and wept.

With tears I watered love’s creeper

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poem by Mirabai
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