Lord of the Meeting Rivers
Watching World Cup in a Spiritual Fever
Vikid was watching some late night football. It was the time of the World Cup. Brazil vs Switzerland. He was tired falling in and out of sleep when he heard a song and drifted into a fever dream…
“Look, the world, in a swell
of waves, is beating upon my face.
Why should it rise to my heart,
tell me.
O tell me, why is it
rising now to my throat?
Lord,
how can I tell you anything
when it is risen high
Over my head
lord lord
listen to my cries
O lord of the meeting rivers
listen.”
These were the songs of Basavanna, a Kanadiga sage from another age.
As he lay there watching the ball, the song hauntingly played,
“I added day by day
a digit of light
like the moon.
The python-world,
omnivorous Rahu,
devoured me.
Today my body
is in eclipse.
When is the release,
O lord of the meeting rivers?”
The poetry was profound, it struck him straight between the ears, in stunned delirium he heard,
“Like a monkey on a tree
it leaps from branch to branch:
how can I believe or trust
this burning thing, this heart?
It will not let me go
to my Father,
my lord of the meeting rivers.”
Goal!
Brazil 1 - Switzerland 0.
Vikid woke up for a second. A South American hero made a fabulous crack at goal.
The game was heating up adding to the fever.
The song broke through the yearning madness or was it creating it?
“Nine hounds unleashed
on a hare,
the body’s lusts
cry out:
Let go!
Let go!
Let go! Let go!
cry the lusts
of the mind.
Will my heart reach you,
O lord of the meeting rivers,
before the sensual bitches
touch and overtake?”
These words were nearly a thousand years old. Vikid tried to imagine the kind of mind that created them. The poetry was pure fire and touched the heart, no, deeper, it spoke to the soul.
“O lord of the meeting rivers
how could I let go
of this burning desire?”
The next match began,
Through the hailing crowds the chant rang,
“When
like a hailstone crystal
like a waxwork image
the flesh melts in pleasure
how can I tell you?
The waters of joy
broke the banks
and ran out of my eyes.
I touched and joined
my lord of the meeting rivers.
How can I talk to anyone
of that?”
It reminded Vikid of one night in Hawaii, when the world opened and he entered the heavens to meet the Lord of the Meeting Rivers. He couldn’t talk to anyone of that either. Waters of joy broke the banks in his eyes too that fateful evening.
The song ended,
“Milk is left over
from the calves.
Water is left over
from the fishes,
flowers from the bees.
How can I worship you,
O Shiva, with such offal?
But it’s not for me
to despise left-overs,
so take what comes,
lord of the meeting rivers.”
The strange inversion of the verse had twisted his mind.
Vikid was The Hero of Offal and Left-overs.
He awoke to the crowds singing.
Goal for Cristiano Ronaldo!
Was he the Lord of the Meeting Rivers?
Perhaps in Football he was, though subsequently the goal was not.
And that’s,