"As water are the lovers of God..." - Francis Brabazon, Poet
Meher Mount
AVATAR MEHER BABA on the S.S. Circassia, returning to India from France, in November 1937. Photograph taken by Rano Gayley. (MSI Collection. Used with permission.)
Ghazal 47
Water, by being in love with death, gives life to all things;
Desiring absorption in the ocean it flows, and sings.
The song of water is reflected in greenness; it assumes
Incredible tallness in men’s hearts where it perfectly blooms.
It is so docile it goes wherever you conduct it;
So raging that it sweeps aside all that would obstruct it.
Its nature is female, it always flows in curves;
Try to grasp it, it eludes you; respect it, it serves.
It occupies the smallest place, yet spreads everywhere:
Its boundlessness can only be expressed by a tear.
As water are the lovers of God — tall in humility,
Forever passing away in eternal stability;
Falling ever at the Beloved’s feet, they spring up in their fall —
And springing, singing like giant flowers, they shed perfume on all.
~ Francis Brabazon
FRANCIS BRABAZON (left), Avatar Meher Baba, and Eruch Jessawala.
“The eternal Beloved, Avatar Meher Baba, over the years I was with him at Meherazad [India] gave me the shape and content of these poems,” Francis Brabazon, poet and close disciple of Meher Baba, said in the preface to his collection of ghazals, In Dust I Sing.
Originally, the ghazal is an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love. Persian poets, particularly Hafiz embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length, and the subject matter included both erotic longing and religious belief or mysticism (Poetry Foundation: Glossary of Poetic Terms).
“The content,” explained Francis Brabazon, “is the relationship between the Lover and the Beloved — a relationship that is never wholly fulfilled until the Lover ceases to exist in himself and passes away in the Beloved. After some time I conceived the idea of an English ghazal.”
After sharing his first few ghazals with Meher Baba, Francis said Meher Baba seemed pleased and told him to continue writing in this new form.
Source
Francis Brabazon, In Dust I Sing, Preface and Ghazal 47, (Woombye, QLD, Australia: Avatar’s Abode Trust, 2019) (c) Copyright Avatar’s Abode Trust. Used with permission.
Thank you to Raine Eastman-Gannett for suggesting this poem by Francis Brabazon for the “The Divine Gift of Water” film and event celebrating the new well and finding drinkable water at Meher Mount.