What we think is unchangeable-
The fixed Pole Star
Every twelve thousand years
Takes on a new Avatar.
Vega, bright blue-white, once indicated the North pole.
Now Polaris, the dull yellow supergiant, has taken on this role.
Do mortal forms rotate thus through my eternal soul
As the stars rotate across the sky which remains ever constant and whole….
GB
Sirius is the brightest star in our sky
Canopus the second..
In ancient India Sirius was Ardhra, associated with the Cosmic Dancer Siva
Agasthya with an old wise sage
The legends speak of Canopus going south
To never rise in the north again
Ancient Indians named the brightest star they could see
Arudhra, the effulgent form of Siva, or The Cosmic Energy.
The second brightest was Canopus, which they named after a sage –
Agasthya, the wise.
Known as “The Old Man”
In China and Japan
Invisible in northern lands above the 37th latitude,
Agasthya, they said, had permanently moved
South. They say Canopus was once the south polar star
And will be again, far
In the future…..
GB
Twelve billion light years away from us
(Thank God!) Is the most violent place in the universe..
A quasar or quasi stellar object, the brightest point of light
Originally classified as just another sun or star, just extra bright
Now we’ve found it’s a massive black hole
Swallowing a sun a day, swallowing them whole!
Material smashing together at ten trillion degrees C
Lightning storms and winds so fierce, they can be seen
From a far distant galaxy… .
GB
Distorted by the mirror of Maya
The Mage whose magic created all..
Is reflected, an Image, with
An ‘I’, a speck of dirt, added-on,
Short-lived, now there, now gone…
This tiny dot on an external surface
Thinks it controls eternal
Time and space,
Magnified by Maya,
The I becomes man’s Ego..
Though truly -less than a cell in vivo …..
GB
Here is the ultimate paradox
That one can say “This is” “or “This was”
But never, never, can one deny
The existence of any entity.
For in the multitudes of possibilities, the infinite, sublime,
Endless permutations of atoms in space-time,
Whatever can be imagined, and much more
Will come to life, or could have existed before
We became aware of our miniscule sphere
Of which so much is yet unclear
To our understanding….
GB
Evolution
Ermine and mink sport designer-wear, Orang-utans are draped in orange hair–
Rhinos charge in their coats of mail,
The peacock struts his fabulous tail:
Hedgehogs have spines, porcupines are quilled;
Toucans and puffins are gorgeously billed;
Some animals are striped, some are spotted,
Feathery, leathery, all-assorted–
Only Man needs clothes – all zippered and pinned:
Because, poor thing, he’s naked-skinned!
As man evolves, shouldn’t his clothes, become smart,
To monitor his body, keep him cool or hot?
Artificial materials that monitor his heart rate
Built-in sensors to remind him to eat, exercise, meditate,
Cushion him so he can sleep on time, awake,
Prevent him from committing any error or mistake!
Settling Down, or Not?
I lost the freedom of roaming with my band-
When I , a nomad, started farming the land.
When my baby developed a very big brain
I chose to stay with him ,to teach and train
Him, and this took so long, I built towns and cities
And developed quirky eccentricities….
Roaming the streets, unloosing my mind,
Or losing it? For now it’s difficult to find —
The peace I once knew…
GB
Every seventy one years it appears without fail,
The comet Pons-Brooks, with its horns and a tail,
Erupting horn-like jets of gases
And this year, as it approaches, and passes
Us, it may photo-bomb some beautiful pics
Of the eagerly awaited April’s solar eclipse.
This Devil Comet may attract many an eye
From the total eclipse- that rare wonder in our sky.
GB
We’ve heard of maps of the earth and skies
But now we’re mapping our insides..
Genome projects to map mutations that exist
Only in specific districts, and some mutations that resist
Certain medications. The latest Indian genome study has found
That there are 4500 population groups around
In our land, and though only 10000 people were chosen
For the project, we hope we’ll soon have a clearer notion
Of how best to heal and grow better……
GB
My name is an identity. When you call, I say “Hey, that’s me!”
Daughter, mother, sister, wife,
Pliant, protoplasmic life…
Carbon and nitrogen synthesized
Forged from fusion in a star’s insides..
Star-matter infused with a spark of consciousness that dreams
Of spanning spacetime and swimming in starry streams….
GB
In the Hall of Mirrors, reflected, re-reflected,
A hundred thousand “me’s”…
From various angles, different images- so many realities.
Foreshortened, tall, short, lean, wide, but in the centre of them all
I thought myself as being the true entity, the only Real One in that Hall!
….Or maybe not??
GB
Five sheaths cover the soul, our ancients said
Flesh matter needing to be comforted and fed,
Next, the flow of fluids including blood, water and air,
More intangible still, the ego, thought and will,
And then the last sheath-the intellect questing, quivering, aware,
When these four are peeled away, what is left is the bare
Membrane that lies between the spirit or soul
Separates it from its substrate, the whole
–of the Creative Energy…
GB
Here, volcanic eruptions mesmerise,
For this is a land of glaciers and ice
Iceland, named for ice, land of fire
Here, where scientists now aspire
To harness the fiery magma reservoir
To supply clean energy and enormous power.
Drilling down to the underground monster
To harness it’s awesome geothermal power
At the Krafla Magma Testbed.
GB
I do not dwell on, grieve or sorrow
For that which I was yesterday
And for the one I shall be tomorrow
I do not dream or pray …
For I’m a stream of changing thought
Evolving speeding past my many egos to what
I cannot
Even imagine!
GB
If what was an intangible spirit
Made organic life that could think,
And we, the organic life evolved
And are on the brink
Of creating machines that have started
To grow
What do you suppose AI powered robots will now
Do next?
GB
We thought demons, like dinos, were extinct and dead
The dinos disappeared, but the demons shape-shifted
And moved into my ego and head.
Laziness, selfishness, Indifference, Intolerance,
Have taken up a permanent residence, and are so difficult to dislodge!
GB
The day gone by saw the birth of our planet earth
Early in the dawn, if we assume that a day
Could last four and a half billion years!
On this cosmic time scale,
Dinosaurs lasted for ten minutes, a half hour before midnight,
And man has been around for eight
Minutes and a few seconds…
Soon this day will be done, will we see a new dawn?
Or will the earth just go on
With some other species?
GB
In the silent night I once asked
“God, What are you?”
A low Voice answered, “I am Energy, matter,
And their substrate, too!”
Then I asked, “Where can I find you?”
“In the core of the sun, in the cool drop of dew,
I am everywhere.”
I finally asked, “God, Who are You?”
In that silent dark, only an echo answered,
“You..You…You…”
GB
For thousands of years, proudly upright
Has stood this tower of grey granite.
Intricately, profusely, shaped and sculpted
By skilled artisans and artists who exulted
In their divine art.
How lucidly the tower tells it’s tales,
Defying the ages, earthquakes, and gales,
Tales of battles, love and loss,
Of miracles, of legends, that were amassed
In our collective consciousness.
That inspire and awaken a glad delight
Awing us with that tower’s might
Where in that rarefied height
The capstone glows in bright sunlight
Or is robed in silver starlight
In the dark..
GB
The European Space Agency’s Gaia telescope,
Carrying the largest-ever digital camera into space
Has made significant discoveries which trace
The origin of galaxies.
Twelve billion years ago two mighty streams of stars
Twining and twisting together, were interwoven, merged,
To become the foundation of a galaxy that emerged
With a central core and spiral arms….our own Milky Way.
The streams were named Shiva and Shakti,
Containing everything we see- all matter all unseen energy
Together eternally joined
in the magnificent dance of Creation!
GB
The solar eclipse this year will last for a few
Minutes, the lunar, maybe an hour or two,
But the darkness when humans disown their kind
May fill the heart, overcloud the mind,
Forever…when we are stubbornly blind
To the possibility that the divine spark exists in all
Men, women and children, the great and small….
GB
Brain waves oscillate and dance
In frequencies of alpha and theta
One rhythm for safe storage, the other
For retrieval of data!
This one way traffic, this choreography
Prevents most mix ups , accidents,
Then why do I keep forgetting where I parked my keys!?
GB
gitabharath 