“And by the thought the roses bloom,”—

From my book of poems I read to Sophie;

But when we came to Immanuel Kant

She preferred an à priori break,

Caring least who moved around whom,

And by what,—the sun, the earth;

It was too much for her to take

The labour as the cause of the birth,

Too insinuating to grant

The world is the mind’s trophy.

Then in a free-wheeling enterprise

Sophie went to KÖnigsberg and found

The starry heaven above all right,

But got stuck with the argument of faith;

You don’t have to be the Protestant

To presuppose the soul that never dies;

It doesn’t seem to be very sound

To bring in God just because reason can’t;

In the deep nature of things is insight,

A push, by which life transcends death.

Sophie met her doppel-gänger, bold and fair,

Who at once was everywhere;

She even saw in the crawling little ant

A huge star glowing as in heaven;

Its numinous brow had majesty

That overflowed in heart and belly and feet;

Presently in a moment of perfect entirety

Sophie walked through the door marked “seven”

When in a big hall the holy wraith of Kant

Gave her the things in themselves to eat.

RY Deshpande

12 December 1996