Tall they stood on either side
Their heads raised proud and green
Along the banks of the rivulet
But deep underground, unseen
Their roots were tangled, intertwined
And the stream flowed in between.
The river wore it’s bed away
It’s banks became canyon walls
And as lower sank the waters
Up rose a living bridge .
When shall our turbulent wars subside
Our shared roots come to light,
To form a bridge between man and man
Unbreakable links forged tight?
I looked down the microscope at an ant
And found his eye looking up at me.
Two pieces of curved, ground glass
And the very large and very small
Lose their quality of hocus-pocus
As my understanding sharpens it’s focus.
And where do I fit into the cosmic scale
Of size and might?
I do have an inflated ego, but–
Surely I cannot be at the centre of the infinite!
A wave rose up out of the sea
A briefly glimpsed individuality.
His head was a foaming froth –
Of thoughts and dreams,
A bubbling broth.
He swept up nacreous shell from the brine,
Multihued mother-of-pearl ,a-shine.
Busily he rushed up on the wet sand
To leave his mark for posterity on the land.
Quietly he ebbed back, once more to merge
With the ocean’s amorphous surge.
Pieces of broken shell remain on this shore,
While a wave takes shape afar once more.
The right half of my brain and the left
Weave together the warp and weft —
The pattern that makes me –me.
From all that I experience and see,
They choose the sight, the taste, the sound,
The bare fact and the intricate surround:
The alarm clock that marks the dawn’s advance,
The stray sunbeam where the dust-motes dance,
Both segue together, intertwine,
A design I appropriate as mine.
But I am too close,too involved to see
The pattern in its entirety.
And when I do see it, when my life is done,
I’ll probably find my tapestry is just one
Tiny thread of millions that interlace
To depict the panorama of the human race!
Vivek, do you remember our trip to the zoo?
You were four and your sister, just two.
You shook off my hand and ran away
It was hot and crowded, that summer day.
I was frantic, searching, looking everywhere,
Till I spotted you outside the cage of the bear.
Breathless, I picked you up, scolded and hugged,
But you were unconcerned and only shrugged.
“I was not losted, I knew where I was, you see, ”
“I came to see the big black bear! ” And you grinned triumphantly.
Now at college I see you’re surrounded
By unchained emotions, thoughts unbounded —
I hope your feet are so thoroughly grounded
That your dreams come true and the nightmares are unfounded.
In the Neolithic age I knapped my stone
And crafted dolls of wood and bone.
I annealed iron in the metal age,
Carved wooden puppets to dance on the stage.
My toys with electronics are now tight-packed
They are programmed to respond, interact.
In the near future I think I shall train
A humanoid robot with an AI brain
So that in tandem we shall unchain
Our potential.
Or would our frail race become obsolete
And Nature then press Control+delete
On the cosmic keyboard where she loves to play
(As I with wood and iron), with protoplasm and DNA.?
I have given a lot of thought
To what my creator is not.
My god is not a thing, a concept, a person,
Though I’ve come across many a version
Of these.
Can the puppet dancing on his string understand
The drama, the skill, of the puppet-Master’s hand?
Can the sculptor be understood
By the finely carved wood,
Or the painter by his art?
Isn’t the creator outside of his creation,
Unknowable, apart?
