RAMGARH - The Visit

It seems a long, long time ago...

It was a coming together of many things that changed those moments and that period from the common-place into a fairy tale.

It was as if the grouping of families, ages and the swaying pines created an instrument for the blowing winds, the mountains and the snow covered peaks to string those moments into a song.

In our different ways we all heard it.

With some it stayed and with others it took wings and flew away into the valleys from where it had been born .....

to lie in wait for the next coming together... 

Jan 9, 1996

                                   
RAMGARH    -      30 Dec '95 ~ Jan 1, 1996


Gagar - a few shops and the road
Winding down to Ramgarh.
Hot tea in the biting cold
Gazing at the snow-capped peaks far away.
The sight - awesome and stark
A poem beyond poetry.

The terraced mountainside - denuded
As far as man could reach;
And beyond covered with green conifers
Whispering to each other
As the wind blew through them.

In the silence between
And in between
Could be heard the soundless gurgles
Of the river of tranquility
That flowed all around.

And the young yearning to be pioneers
Busy terrace climbing
And going for a walk - Where??
"There...."
Pointing to the tiny thread of water
Flowing over the rocks a thousand feet below.

A windswept afternoon framed by the clouds,
Bitterly cold.
A drizzle of cold rain, very cold,
And within each drop
A flake of snow, pristine,
A truth of nature
And a promise for the future.

The pioneers at lunch,
Rushing out to collect each flake
And watching it melt away
Without sustenance in their warmth.

The evenings - warm
Cosily wrapped in the sound of the roaring fire.
Or watching the stars twinkling above
A reflection of the stars
Twinkling in the valley below.

Each alone
Yet surrounded by the warmth of others...
We were home.

Sitting here now far away,
With memories of the elation,
The physical exertion
And the peacefulness thereafter.

And before leaving
A sharing
Of the sound of the wind blowing:
A sigh? A moan?
Difficult to describe
Yet an apt epilogue.

The deepening darkness and gloom,
It descended on all when we left
Carrying with us
Experiences
Of a tenous linking of people
Time
And nature
Vital, yearning,
Gentled by the the stllness and the vast silence
That was Ramgarh.

A symphony in harmony.