I have been recently compiling a unit on "World Poetry" to teach to the Year 10s at my Melbourne school next year. This has led me through many cultures, mostly African and Indian, to find the best poems that are out there. I also had the great joy this week of sitting with one of the indigenous students from my school in Tawau - a gentle-spirited, godly boy who writes poetry - helping him to translate two of his poems from Bahasa Malaysia into English. I won't share any of his works here, because they are not mine to share, but along the way on my journey through the world's poetry, I found this beautiful offering by Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian poet. His particular blend of mysticism is, I am sure, often quite divergent from Christian belief, but I think I could say this poem word for word and mean it all. I picture Lazarus, the poor man from Jesus' parable, begging at the gates of heaven, and being let in with all the mercy of our mighty and humble King:
Beggarly Heart (Rabindranath Tagore)
When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from
beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.
When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.
When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,
thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.
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