The Unadorned

My literary blog to keep track of my creative moods with poems n short stories, book reviews n humorous prose, travelogues n photography, reflections n translations, both in English n Hindi.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

God is Fast Asleep



God is Fast Asleep

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Shhh.......
God is fast asleep—
Unable to recall
What made Him bestow
So much on one
And so miniscule on the others,
Glisten, the green fronds
Awash with the maiden showers,
The waves lap against the shores
to return requited
humming merrily its sibilant whispers,
The silver surf, the golden sand
So very cool, copious and captivating
Busy celebrating their togetherness,
The undulating landscape
of the red earth and the flowing streams
Everything...
Everything to one but so less to the other,
Not a blade of grass raises its head
The other side, the craggy terrain, the floating sands
The dry beds of a prehistoric stream;

God is fast asleep—
Confused: how one smiles when he’s angry
How one prays without surrender
How one offers so much claiming that his own
How the words and sense travel in parallel
Never to meet, never to be believed
but to be repeated on and on
just for the sake of a rhythmless rhyme
like a chewing gum bereft of sweetness,  
How one thinks himself more intelligent
Than the other eating from the same plate
Sniffing the same breeze and gazing at the same sky;

God is fast asleep—
Clueless: what precious little he can do now
To make them appreciate the obvious meaning
The sun is sun and the stars are stars
The equals they are at a theoretical level
sharing the same firmament
and emitting the same rays,
How to preserve the pleasure of giving
When the dignity of expecting is so forgotten,
How to stop the competition
Nay, the ogling match of the naughty children
To make the others cry while himself smirking,
How to rein in the ambition...and the greed
There’s only so much space on the road
How to let everybody
Run so mindlessly fast;

God is asleep though—
But before going to sleep
He had hit upon an idea
His own little idea
He could not act upon it though
So facilely, the sleep did overpower Him
How to take the frogs out of the well
Rehabilitate, recalibrate them at thinking level
Making them face the world
And see for themselves what the world looks like
And make them know
what the world thinks of them;

Nay, even He is not confident:
Taking the frog out of well
May as well turn a flop show,
Who knows?
There is this second thought though
Even after taking the frogs out of the well
Showing them the Eiffel Tower
Where is the guarantee that they would think sense
And admit that there are object on this earth
Taller than them.

Oh God!
I’ve a suggestion
Suggestion to you the clueless
Still sleeping and dreaming a way out,
One day
You should bring the Himalayas here
And let your children taste
and know for themselves
How distance is measured not in kilometres
But in days and months,
Sweat refuses to trickle while tears flow so facile,
 Sorrows are made to fly
Afar, to the mountain passes past the trails of ravines
Along the lilt of the melody
Wafting past them and beyond
Leaving the souls awash, clean and sparkling,
How muscles dissipate to keep in rhythm
The priceless gift of breath and life,
How belief precedes the prayer
Not the outpouring of greed,
How respect begets love and love the respect
How your bounty is matched
By gratitude, prayer and hope.

Oh God!
Wake up and bring the Himalayas here
Now, at this moment, before it’s too late
The frogs will automatically
Spring out of the water
And make a beeline to the summit
No need to sleep for aeons on end
Just thinking and thinking and abdicating
An ounce of action worth a ton of dreaming.
 -------------------------------
By
A. N. Nanda
Kollam
20-06-2015
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