Ana Ram Callan: The Boy Who Would Be Sage

 

Offering

When I am still,
the mountain sings to me
in a voice more subtle
than silence.

Sometimes the angels chime in
and the entire universe becomes
a wild symphony.

And when the mind roars,
the sea of Brahman still
swims inside me
even when I don't hear,
even when I can't see.

This I that you think you are
is not I.

Know nothing.
Let that be your gift.
Be air. Be water. Be sky.
Let that be your prayer.

No one is all you need to be.

When I am,
the mountain lowers her cup
whispering, Feast.

And I do:
light drinking of light
so the sky is flooded with it
until all that remains
is the one heart of God,
saturate with pure love.



Creation

For the joy of His beloved,
Shiva sundered His flesh.

In one thunderous move,
He created two.

Linga of Light
Become Half Man,

Half Woman, to show
how all separation is

illusion, how He himself
is the full fusion

is the single source

of all that seems to
breathe and move.

One cleft flesh he laid
before us to teach

how each tributary
is not off course

and will flow
or shudder

eventually

back to its true
origin.



My Lord of the Shimmering Limbs

My Candlelit Lord

My Lord of Divine Composition

You are the bird in my hand
when the hand is crushed.

You are my freedom,
my truth,
you’re my undefiled love.

All the bells in my heart
and the chains in my gut
are clamoring for you,
for one life-giving touch.

My love is a flood of long nights,
of wild tears and blood.

It is a fire, a fury of flowers
in bud, erupting
in blossom through
the pores of my skin.

Where o where
can I hide now,

My Lord of the Mountain,

My One Lord of White Light?



Home of The Master

I lay down with My Lord
In a bed of yellow roses

And he made silk of my skin.
As I gave my lips to him

He rendered me mute

So my ears teemed
With the beauty of silence,

Of one body twined
Limb to limb

Of light pouring
Through and around us

Like water freed from
Its source

Hair loosed, spilling out
On the air, each breath
On fire with stars.

Who is it is imbued
With the love
Of the Master,

O Host, Holy Host
Of My Heart?



ASH

Shiva is coming for me
with his cloak of gold
and wildfire.

He is stoking the flame
of every last place
that still believes in desire
and heeds it.

He is raising the heat
with magnificent force,

a fury of jewels singed
and torched under
the crunch of his foot.

thoughts flailing
in electric waves
of burn and scorch.

The perfect torture
- o rapturous dance -

all longing and need
washed clean at last
by the storm of tears,

all trance of me
finally ground into
blissful dust, leaving

His unrivalled gift
laid out in the ash:

the exquisite signature
of freedom.



Dissolution

Like the bird smashing his chest
against the window of your room,

time and again, his furcula,
that tender, brittle wish-bone

bursting out of his loaded,
willing heart, aiming like

god’s arrow at
unspeakable, unbreakable

love, I want to crash
through the barrier

of flesh, ram headlong,
bodiless into your timeless

chest, and on and on,
ignorant of injury,

of boundary, on

out the other side,
burned to cinders

glowing in such
merciful merging

with such perfect light.



Love Spewing Out The Spigots

Love leaking through each crevice
each blow holy hole
each twig leaf flower stem bole
each beak feather wing claw
mole mouse chipmunk
squirrel fish tadpole

Love spurting out its
lack of limits through
every open pore cell
eye nose every finger
brow toe heel spore

Love beside on top of
under inside itself
spilling reeling
pooling out of

Nothing into the
vast appearances
and melting but
not thawing
back – and o how
sweetly – back into
the whole.

 

Ana Ram Callan is an award winning poet, essayist and novelist, originally from Ireland. Her work has been published and anthologized in the USA, Canada, The British Isles, Canada and India. She offers Spiritual Memoir and Mystic Poetry classes by invitation around the country and in Europe.

The Boy Who Would Be Sage is her new collection of poems. The book chronicles the life of Indian mystic, Ramana Maharshi, from his birth in Tirichuzi, India, in 1879 through his death in 1950. Different sections include his boyhood years; his journey to Holy Mountain Arunachula, his guru; his years at the ashram that formed around him; his intimacy with animals; various of his devotees, including Annamalai Swami, Ganapati Muni and the poet Murugunar; the progress of sarcoma riddling his arm, and his final years in human form.

The sepia book cover was designed by Ramana Ashram, who also provided the beautiful archival photographs that are included throughout. Some of the poems have been previously published in the Mountain Path, the longstandiing international journal devoted to all things Ramana.

For more information on purchasing The Boy Who Would Be Sage by Ana Ram Callan, visit the StillnessSpeaks online store.