Weary–
a traveler, walking uphill
to claim his legacy
from his folks up there on the
hilltop,
sits under a lone juniper;
heaves deep sighs of
frustration
and rages out his fill–
“Didn’t the blind folk
see the vast, extensive plains
down there on the river bank?
Why did they have to rot
on the barren, rocky
mountaintop
and continue to cherish
the harshest weather on earth?”
Tuned to the sophistications
of radiances in his luxury den
down there in the town—
he can no longer reckon
that the River
on whose bank he honks
the soulless slogans of banal simulacra,
is rooted on the hilltop.
It’s as the Vedas say:
Aswatha – with roots above and
the shoot below!
He cannot reckon—
that civilization of men
did never spring on the plain
and mounted up the hill
like a covetous mountaineer
from the West.
The river
and the civilization of men
sprung with a gush, up there, on
the mountaintop
near the sky.
Down flowed the river
inevitably,
and with it moved some men
to invent money and cars.
If his old grandmother
and the sick grandfather
anchor their lives
to a stone
to a cave
to the smell of the cattle
droppings
to cool, refreshing water
springs
to the fresh oranges that
yield gold
to Nag Raj that guards their
water spring
to the ruddy hills and the
virgin slopes
where the honey bees hum the
song of life
where butterflies and
nestlings fly—
he has no point
in puking blasphemy
at the octogenarians
that begot him!
As long as
man thrives on earth
and continues to expand his
empire
over the plain,
some dim light
out of an oil lamp
will continue to glow at midnight
on the mountains
far away
silently
yes, silently!
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