". . .CHITTO JETHA BHAYASHUNYO. . ." ( WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR )
breath & sax unite to form a creature made of flesh & horn
his sax calls forth his own ghost it dances before him like smoke
he closes his eyes loses sight of everything but the song
he plays not knowing what he plays until he plays it
the song seems to know where it's going it's the man he improvises
"...where the world has not been broken up into fragments..."
he longs to be taken out of himself so he can become himself
the last note he comes back from the nowhere that he's found
stuck now in this somewhere he is made ordinary again
now he's just a man with a limp just another drunk
his sax the genie of sound sound asleep in its case
he hums inside his head the music heard he the instrument now
tapping on the table his cigarette dancing to the invisible music
the notes half man half ghost tapped inside his skull
even the silence now full of sound
"...sometimes I wish the music would leave me alone..."
"...the music is like a very very big dog taking its owner for a walk.."
"...note by note I am transformed until I am the music..."
"...caught in a riptide what can I do. . ?"
And in Tagore's own translation, from the 1912 English edition of Gitanjali. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and actionβ Into that heaven of freedom, my Father let my country awake