BASANT by Freda Bedi

Poem in honour of Guru Baba Nanak on his 2011 Birthday "Gurpurab" 

BASANT

Guru Nanak said to God

(white his beard as snow untrod)

‘Whatever tree or fruit it yields

Does mustard grow in the

Heavenly Fields?

Curd from the pitcher, well-water sweet

Out in the fields a man must eat;

Wholewheat bread and mustard grant

The heart of the Punjab is the sarson plant.

Where is the winter’s unsheathed lance?

Spring comes with a lyric and bhangra dance.

My daughter has yellow veils in her dower

The heart of the Punjab is the sarson flower’

‘Guru Baba Nanak, look

Tender your eyes like a country brook

Whatever tree or fruit it yields:

There’s a carpet of gold in the Heavenly Fields.

(From:“Rhymes for Ranga”, poems for children written in pre-Independence 1940’s, by my mother, Freda Bedi. Published in 2010 by Random House India.)