Sapphire in My Flame

The night resurrects my devotion
Uncertain in Dakshineshwar’s shimmering light—
Ganga’s ashen locks in feeble motion
With wisdom piercing the sable night

Recasting its elements, this flesh returns
To the muslin of his teachings, pure as dust,
What the earth dissolves, the ocean discerns,
From tadpoles to frogs, from iron to rust

His heraldry erodes my baffled solitude
The chimeras flee as he murmurs his chant—
A depthless forest, where nightly avians brood
And a drought-stricken peasant unearths a kingly grant

Ramakrishna, you are the sand, which glass became—
So long as I flicker—the sapphire in my flame