On understanding and other such myths

On understanding and other such myths'

1.

There is a void

I try to fill

it's impenetrable

I toil nonetheless

 

I attach it to people and things

equally in-vain

 

it is my Nessun dorma

a sleepless lament

 

logic has failed me 

and religions have mislead me

mostly

 

I look at the old people

they look so calm

beyond the fading lines

Maybe they weren't what they are now.

 2.

There's fire and moon

from where it all began

to create the un-made

to annihilate the created

create

a voice said

and it all came to being

 

Reminiscences

linger

mountains, rivers, oceans

people

 

3.

 Mithyaa

you see all of this,

you, me, this world

is a magnificent lie

said the poet

before he was pelted with stones

Smallest amongst the atoms*

Expansive than the sky;

some said he disappeared

some said he was dragged from a bridge

before being killed

 

Gods, they said, came down and took him along

unto the heavens

we believed them.

  4.

 The layer thickens

the songs we sing

the love we make

the sadness we feel

The pain that’s throbbing in my knee right now

 

All beyond a broken veil, the discernment

a mere illusion

brilliantly

ornate

 ***

Anant Dhavale

Copyright@ Anant Dhavale

 

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* These two lines are a loose translation of a poem by Tukaram, a sixteenth-century Marathi poet.