(after poem from 'The Gardener' by Rabindrinath Tagore)

Height 110cm
width/depth 30 x 53cm

Stone-resin edition of 15 (sold out)
Bronze edition of 9

From ‘The Gardener’
by Rabindrinath Tagore
LV1
I was one among many women busy with the obscure
daily tasks of the household.
Why did you single me out and bring me away from
the cool shelter of our common life?

Love unexpressed is sacred. It shines like gems in the
gloom of the hidden heart. In the light of the curious
day it looks pitifully dark.
Ah, you broke through the cover of my heart and dragged
my trembling love into the open place, destroying for ever
the shady corner where it hid its nest.

The other women are the same as ever.
No one has peeped into their inmost being, and they
themselves know not their own secret.
Lightly they smile, and weep, chatter and work.
Daily they go to the temple, light their lamps, and fetch
water from the river.

I hoped my love would be saved from the shivering
shame of the shelterless, but you turn your face away.
Yes, your path lies open before you, but you have cut off
my return, and left me stripped naked before the world with
its lidless eyes staring night and day.



“A brilliant and innovative novelist, playwright, painter, educator and musician, Rabindrinath Tagore (1861 – 1941) was also an outstanding poet and is universally recognised as the major classic writer of Bengal.

During his prolific and highly influential career, he was a leading figure in the Indian nationalist movement; an intimate of Ghandi; composer of the Indian National Anthem; a powerful educational thinker and a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Ref: B8