Tag: Hinduism

The Infinity Beyond My Ken

Possibilities
The ways of being
I cannot comprehend

Exploring the infinity
Beyond my ken

What I love most about existence

The countenance of a buddha
The presence for a selfie
The presentation for an FB world

Five priests
Raise fire
Into night

On Ganga banks
At Shiva’s
Light

Where people come
To see
The sight

Some pray
Some pay
In boats
Packed tight

Aum
I sing
From deep within

Aum
The sound
Resonates
Like kundalini
When spirit rises
Energy of life
And being

Every night
The aarti fire
Five priests
Pay homage
To Shiva’s gifts
While one boy
In their shadow
Shines bright

They come to bathe
In waters pure
Then, with spirits cleansed
They dry their saris
Upon the steps
Which bore them down
To Mother Ganga’s shore

I wonder
Sometimes
At my devotions

Could I have been better
At this or at that
Had I offered more devotion

But of all the this
And all the that
Just two devotions have mattered

In the moonlit night
Release flowers and fire
Into Ganga’s flow

For pilgrims and believers
A gift to Ganga, river goddess
Holy of holies
Source and purifier

Saffron
Colour of fire
Bringer of light
Burn away ignorance
Flame of insight

Saffron
Colour of purity
Symbol of abstinence
Purge the tainted
Cleansing ritual

Piled high
As kites can fly
And like the spires
Of Hindu Ghats
The wood of Kashi
On Ganga banks

To build the pyres
For funeral blaze
Lit from embers
Of Shiva’s fire
Burns every hour
Of every day
Four thousand years
And still today