My atoms..my life

Atoms don’t live.
They exist simply.
In neutrality.
Without negatives. Or positives
Atoms don’t  die.
They don’t dare as e=MC square

Soul-less atoms.
No sadness, no happiness.
Ever in Nirvana,
In Time’s untiring Kabalah.

A mass of billion atoms,
I must live-
a charged, challenged axiom.
Not exist.
Just love, cry, mourn and miss.
As the soul of soul-less atoms,
and the life of a throng of atoms

No Nirvana.
No formula.
Life trudges on Karma…

The Unhappy Lighthouse

"Sea! Oh you timeless beauty!
Bounteous mother, moon’s frenzied lover!
Blessed are you in world’s decree;
Singing, dancing and brimming in eternal cheer.

Upright on untiring feet I live and live;
Voiceless and lame, an armless gargantuan.
No lives to nurse or alms to give,
a solitary, faceless anchorman.”
***
“Yes. Your tongueless frame never could count
The lost sea-farers that you led to happy homes.
No slumbering soul ever kept account
of nights you stood sentinel, in lone illume.

My frothy waves shall ne’er tire
of kissing your gridlocked feet.
Rising-falling-rising they aspire
to copy your oblivious feat.

For there’s light within you,
A beacon birthing within, spreading without…
Night’s eye! Land’s unfailing virtue!
Lighted, as you tower over all, all else blackout!”

Who goes to Paradise?

“Who deserves Heaven?”

asked the teacher then.

“Mother.”

“Father.”

The pupils’ replies deferred

“You good sir.”

“All godly men.”. 

“What Kanaka, is your answer?”

“I deserves Heaven”

“Heaven he fancies!”

“How dare he dream!?”

The furor and screams

never did ease. 

“What said you?”

The preacher asked in peace.

“If your kind sir may please,

‘I’ merits Paradise.

The I in me, the I in you,

the I in these men who rue,

these ‘I’s deserve Paradise.”

The answer rang so true,

it immensely pleased the guru.

For I when exiled,

Selfdom is dead.

The I-less self can flaunt no ego

Kanakadasa knew this

so long ago!

The above anecdote is a true incident in the life of the great poet-saint of Kannada, Kanakadasa. Kanaka’s devotion to Lord Sri Krishna was legendary. So unshakeable in fact, that it is believed that the idol of the lord in the Udupi shrine did a 180-degree turn to give darshan to this devotee!

Kanakadasa is believed to have had this conversation with Sri Vyasa Raja, another great saint of those times.