Images: above - courtesy, Harjot. Below, second from bottom - courtesy: Gurumustuk Singh.
Columnists
Nine Tons of Gold
A Poem by MICHELE GIBSON
A thousand hands to plunge into the soil
Cull a million pounds away
One blessed sarovar
A jutting pier
Ten thousand kiln dried bricks
100 tons of marble
18 gates
Three sculpted stories
A trillion drops of water
Breathing, with a hundred thousand fish
A temple rising from the centre
Of the pool of immortality
Resting, on Amrit
Nine tons of gold
A single bridge to reach the holy place
Four entrance ways
One ornate palki shades
The Guru Granth Sahib
One thousand, four hundred, thirty sheets of parchment
A plenitude of voices rise inside
Parshad to fill 100 bowls
Ten thousand souls at langar
Redouble reverence
Magellan circumnavigates the globe
Ten Gurus bless a holy shrine
Four doors to face four cardinal directions
A bird, a breeze may venture there
But any woman, man or child
Any station, any caste, 100 different faiths
Descend the marble stairs
To the temple on the pool
Magellan sails to grasp the world
The Guru walks a million steps
And builds one shrine with many doors
To welcome you
March 2, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Gurmeet Kaur (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), March 02, 2010, 10:26 AM.
Ah! Your words transport me to Darbar Sahib! Thanks, Michele. I love the Darbar Sahib as is, but I do long to see the original form, how the Gurus built it - without the gold and all. There must be art works/pictures depicting the orginal archictecture somewhere. Someone ... please share.
2: Sukhdeep Singh (New Delhi, India), March 02, 2010, 1:25 PM.
Enjoyed the poem. Through worldly and mundane facts and figures, you somehow weave a peaceful and visual image of the heavenly place. Thank you!
3: Girish Advani (Cameroun), March 02, 2010, 6:10 PM.
Ramdas sarovar naahte sub utrey paap kamaate/ Nirmal hoye kar isnaana gur poorey heeney daana.
4: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), March 02, 2010, 6:35 PM.
What a lovely, deft piece. In a few lines, you have transported us to "Harmandar Sajaya". Here is Man's journey described by Guru Nanak in just one line. Can you beat that: "Karh pakee kurh bhajai/ binsa-aa-ay chalai ki-aa maan" - "When the crop of life has matured, it bends, breaks and perishes; why take pride in that which comes and goes?" [GGS:76]