WONDER. DREAMS. PAPER BOATS.;

PAPER BOATS ( 1913) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) 

                                        Childhood wonder , dreams and the journey .

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream.

In big black letters I write my name on them, and the village where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them

And know who I am......

I load my little boats with shiuli flowers from our garden

(Shiuili :*Nycanthes arbor-tristis: fragrant night blooming Jasmine from south Asia)

I hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land in the night...

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky

and see the little clouds setting their white bulging sails.

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!

When night comes I bury my face in my arms

And dream that my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

The fairies of sleep are sailing in them

And the lading (*cargo) is their baskets full of dreams.........

"Clouds come floating into my sunset sky, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky...." -Tagore

Photographs 2025.

  "Paper Boats" is from the "Crescent Moon" collection  1913 by Rabindranath Tagore ( in the public domain)