A bird is not just a winged animal,
which’s red, yellow, green and that;
It peps up and paints the woods,
And it makes the branch a bough.

Then, it perches on the branch,
And wings well over the lake;
And it’s more than a forage,
It makes the lake more of a lake.

It chirps and twitters well too,
And rings out the joy of life;
And it’s more than a birdsong,
It’s the voice of the woods.

Hues, tones, form and sways,
Attitude, class and demeanor,
In all, it excels us all
And merits o’er this babble.

Peace! God’s Peace upon you all! The Bishop blessed
The dyed-young congregation: dyed fathers ‘n mothers,
Grandpas ‘n grannies, great-grandpas and great-grannies.
The demons of decadence--Hair dye, ****** and Spirits –
Chuckled and giggled, crouching well under the pulpit.

Dyed gurus ‘n financiers, dyed lawyers, doctors n’ nurses,
****** entrepreneurs and ****** entertainers, dyed judges
Dyed ‘n spirited evangelists, priests and vergers on ******
Peace be upon thee all! Blessed the Bishop from the pulpit.
Now, the demons in the hiding iterated and reiterated it.

A Sunday spirited chat—all smiles! -- in the church portico:
The ******-dyed banker in later life smiled a dyed smile
At the elderly dyed mother of three; and she said: they say,
In spite of my age, you know, I look so young and pretty!
And the thick flanks under her chin jiggled in approbation.

The ****** great-grandpa said to the dyed Justice of spirits:
Milord, they say: “The stuff brings cancer;” Fools! Idiots!
“The gloves—the ******-like device—that’s our safety!”
“Milord! This trinity wizard, they bring a million crores
To the exchequer of this famished democracy, milord!”

“Milord! The nature lovers say, we wash billions of bottles
Of these magic stuffs into their rivers and the seas, milord!”
“They say we all-- dyed ****** men-- are sissies and doofuses!”
“Milord! Our tubby women dye young, lest they’d be labelled
Mammy, Granny, Grandma, Old Granny, the decrepit ‘n that!

Now, the dyed media reported: father mated with his daughter,
Mother with a teenager, grandpa with an infant; and Ministers,
MLAs, MPs—all spirits-******-dyed-- are in a ******* spree!
Now the Dark Trinity cried “Wow! In this world of ******,
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory--all are ours! Amen!

Climbing—it’s a calling: everyone’s calling!
The climber climbs on, on and on, perpetually;
The ladder dictates, and the climber climbs;
Fate! No discretion! And no choice to make!

The ladder is to the climber, climber to the ladder;
Mutuality:  Each fulfilling the role of the other.
The ladder knows not why the climber climbs,
And the climber knows not why the ladder dictates.

The climber reaches the top, and then, what next?
Whether to descend, or jump down, or take wing?
Dread-apprehension- trepidation- distress!
It conquers the climber, then the fall! Defeat!

But I climb on, both in rise and in fall alike;
Path clear, vision fixed, destination well-defined;
Clouds, ether, blaze, radiance, doorway, chorus,
Throne, corona, nimbus, glory-bedazzling!
Beauty is forever Truth, and truth forever Beauty!

****-a-doodle-do! ****-a-doodle-do!
Cockcrow! Wake up, you poor humans!
The crazy, heartless sapient-irrationals!
You glug your cocktails in our names,
And slay, roast, and offer us to God,
And atone slyly your un-atonable sins.

Our lovely sickle tails, you used, once,
To concoct the cocktails you gulped;
And coveted our red comb and wattle,  
The bright yellow of our cape and hackle,
The glittering blue of our wing bows,
And the violet-red of the back and saddle.

Oh no! Don’t strip us of our fair plumage
Our sickle, main tail and the lesser sickle,
Our fluff, hock joint, shank and the spur,
To the toes and claws, for you to toil
Hard, to fry--stir-fry—us, **** in your oil,
For your vain cocktail-less cocktail summits.

On Nunday morning came at my door,
A Pharaoh  ant of Elephant size.
A   thorax, six legs, two antennae
A form well - shaped, flawless, textbook
With  perfect beginning, middle and end

Over and over I rubbed my eyes
The ant, it stood still at my door,
And bracing itself for all my wrath,
Annunciated at the highest of pitches
The nonsense of all my senses

KARMAS
The lovely, amorous cherry blossom trees,
Decked well in shades of pink and white,
With clouds of boughs and blossoms rich,
Clasped, rubbed, caressed and hugged
And kissed on and on   in warm embrace;
And their bosoms   heaved and breathed O2.

Lovers came under the cherry blossom trees
With hearts filled well with thoughts of love,
In the shades of the boughs of pink blossoms,
They kissed and blushed with words fervent,
Danced   in joy round the blossomed trees,
And gasped in passion, and heaved out CO2.

The gorgeous, loving trees stayed there long
In vehement love, veneration and adoration,
With the alluring charm of the passing blooms
Painting again and again   the fleeting lives.
But choppers with axes sharpened were on
To hack their pink xylems and phloems.

From shelves and racks, or lying in stacks, Books,
Of all ages and epochs—adolescents and youths,
Aged and venerable, and e’en those in decrepitude,
Much eloquent, but in all silence, share with us
Experiences wide ranging, emotions well pent up,
Passions, love and hate, and joys and sufferings,
Triumphs, failings, histories, biographies and maxims.

A pat or stroke, or appeal in awe, or in supplication,
They’d unleash to you, in varied moods and temper,
Their stories, in letters, words, phrases, sentences;
In prose or verse on folios, or in acts and scenes,
Of Helens, Quixotes, Falstaffs, Holmes and Othellos,
In the highs and lows of their pleasures and pathos,
Of Lears, Tristans and Isoldes, and procrastinators.

Of the plucks and spirits of Arjunas and Achilleses,
Of the failings of the ill-fated Kareninas and Bovaries,
Of the unwavering faith of Jobs, Noahs and Abrahams,
Of the lovelorn Sakunthalas, and Sitas under Simsupa,
Of God’s Garden, and of the wisdom of the Himalaya,
They speak in silence, of the real and the imagined,
As mighty godlike genies waiting for our summons!

The old peasant Lady
Of cheeks gullied deep
‘N dreams sultry-tanned
Sawn into the furrows
Of hardest times, which
The stylistic constraints
Of the post-impressionist
Van Gogh hid behind
His vibrant bush strokes,
But seeped as oil of toil
In to the lap of the Earth
And squats as the Deity
Of all our moral codes.

Heed, you humans on this land of my making:
With trees you shall dwell in mutual amity,
And fairly barter with them CO2 for O2.
And I deliver you this command never to violate:
Go to sleep when the Sun descends and the Moon climbs;
The day you violate this law you will surely die.

The Law! The Great linking of the Supreme!
Empathy! Keats and the sparrow connection!
The neurogenic experiences of the living rock!
From the Fount it flows across flora and fauna,
In your garden stays a while, for you to bathe!
It’s blessedness, that’s “all ye need to know.”

The Red Sea! It lay like a distressed soul, unsettled, deserted and restless;
On its tile-paved shore, I leant against a lamp post, in the desert land;
Women in burkas busied themselves with their kids and picnic baskets;
While cats searched voraciously, among the rubble, for the left over bones.

On my left lay Sanaa, the once upon a time city of Shem, first-born of Noah,  
Whence Queen Sheba embarked in all majesty with gifts for King Solomon.    
And far, beyond the saltiest swelling Red, lay the darkly exploited continent.
Now, a warm gust of wind slogged its way into my lone distraught self.    

Tides heaved, flickered their wet tongues across the rubble, and licked me,
Then withdrew themselves tired, but again and again returned half-heartedly
With much salty tears and sweats of ******* and sufferings of bygone ages:  
The assorted agonies of the Mediterranean, the Indian and the Pacific deeps.

Through the dull splashes, waded to me, Moses and Aron and the Pharaoh;
They said: “Visitor, listen to the voices of the depths!” And I heard well
The abysmal rattle of chariots, wheels and bones, uncarbontestably ancient.
And in the splash of the Red, I scarily tasted the tears and blood of torments.

Then they cautioned me: “Beware of the pseudo-democrats and pseudo-reds:
The gunpowder brokers!” and quoted: “In this world, you’ll have troubles.”
And now, the Sea sounded: “Sorry my dear son, I’m here to bear all these.”
I sighed in pain, but the Sea, through the burning lamp posts, smiled at me.

Sorry! Oh, little sons of the Divine,
Born into this callous land of vices
That prides on and on on a’himsa,
And a wolf-in-sheepskin democracy.

On this land of your nativity--your due,
Nurture yourselves as good humans,
Staying away from the bug of hatred,
To serve it ‘n to transform it for good.

Thoroughfares! Lives! They meet as if by chance;
Starry lights, in legions, smile and smile all around;
The earth, beneath, exudes her summer thoughts;
Wheels smile and push themselves back and forth,
To the unknowns, to vanish, then to emerge again,
Creating unnumbered, fortuitous moments of joy!

“Please try these yellow glasses, sage.”
“Yes, things are now yellow,” says he.
“Now try these blue ones, you patriarch.”
“Oh, things are blue now,” cries the Pater.

“Then what color is the blue sky, you sages?”
“We don’t know, they say it’s not blue.”
“And then, the blue ocean? Really blue?
“Respect our wisdom, you idiot!” they yelled.

If color is no color, then Black is no black;
Then crow is no crow, and death is no birth.
‘Beauty is not truth, and truth no beauty’
Bodhi, mirror and void—all are just illusions!