The plums tasted sweet . . .

[Guest guest]

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 distinguish 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,

Ecstatically 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.

 

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.

 

~Mirabai

 

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