Song 90

Poem is not merely a talent but an art to give expression to emotion and thoughts.

And Sri Rao explains this poem very beautifully:

…The word ‘rose’ connotes only much of colour and fragrance as it helps us to recognise the flower, and no more. It is thus that the normal man, engaged in the normal activities of life, sees the world. It may be beautiful or ugly; he takes that beauty or ugliness for granted. But the poet, seeing the world through his emotions, restores to the world the concrete detail that the intellect had robbed it of. The sense elements thus restored get related to the passion which brought about the disintegration of the universals. They combine in a different way, to form patterns charged with his passion.—

               In moments of exaltation when the poet is in the grip of a passion the sense impressions leap up and get related to the sensations that arise in the mind of the poet, modify them and are modified by them. The moment they come within the magnetic field of his passion they fly to attach themselves to it and thus is born the pattern which we call the poetic image….— A note on poetic imagery in the Meghaduta.  A. N. Moorthy Rao. Pp. 121-128, in, Dr. H. L. Hariyappa and Dr. M. M. Patkar, eds. Professor P. K.  Gode Commemoration volume. Oriental Book Agency, Poona, 1960. p. 121

At the same time Kasha warns that:

…Poets do have a licence to personify and make into substantives anything they please; but surely one cannot begin to take them literally….— REFLECTIONS ON THE CONCEPT OF ACTION IN THE GITA.  S. Paul Kashap. Pp. 116-128, in, Bimal Krishna Matilal, ed, Moral Dilemmas in the Mahabharata, Indian Institute of Advanced Study Rashtrapati Niwas, Shimla, in association with Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, (1989) 2^nd Reprint, 2014, p.119

90  கவிஞ்ஞன்

எண்ணங்களை வண்ணங்களாக்கி

எழுத்துக்களை வடிவங்களாக்கி 

கருத்துக்களை கவிதையாக்கி

வடிப்பவனே கவிஞ்ஞன் ஆவான் 

உணர்ச்சிகளின் பிழம்பாய் மாறி

உள்ளூரும் எண்ணங்களை

வெளிப்படுத்த முயலும் போது

வெடிப்பவையே கவிதயாகும்

உணர்வு இல்லா மனிதர்களே

உலகத்தில் எங்கும் இல்லை

அதை உணர்ச்சிகளின் வடிகாலாக்கி

ஊற்றுவதே கவிதையாகும்

உலகத்தின் உணர்வுகளெல்லாம்

உருண்டோடும் வாய்க்காலாகி 

கருத்துக்களை வடித்துக்காட்டும்

கலைஞ்ஞனே கவிஞ்ஞன் ஆவான்

Xdú]ô, 16-9-97, UôûX, 5-00 U¦,      

90  Poet

The poet is the one who

Makes the thoughts colourful

Gives shape to the words

Changes the thoughts as poems

Becoming the flame of sensation

When the inner thoughts

Erupt outwardly

They become poems

There is no human being

Without having emotion

Allowing to flow

And pouring is the poem

The poet is one

Who becomes the channel

To flow many thoughts

And the sensation in the world

Lucknow 16-9-1997, 5.00 am