World Poetry Day: The Enigma and The Theatre

I

Religion devoid of spiritual knowledge is a dark well

where vile beasts roam with claws of hate.

There is so much fresh blood in speech nowadays,

even the vast sea is just a lonely teardrop.

 

Don’t let the poisoned teeth to sink into your mind.

The infection will veil your soul and make you thirsty for hell.

 

You yourself won’t know what you have become.

No mirrors will reflect to you,

your own true face.

 

Hate is the old enemy that never grows old.

Identity is a trap that seizes us from the time we are born.

 

I am this; you are that.

But the truth is: we don’t know who we are.

 

When you ask yourself: who am I?

The question itself is the freedom we all seek.

Not to have an answer is what saves us.

 

We feel the waves of the nameless within us.

The unknown makes a nest within our soul.

Oblivion is a bliss that also awaits us,

at the end of all our pleasures.

The void of bliss and emptiness;

that is my being.

 

This to me is divine —

transcendence of identity.

 

II

 

The stars were waiting for billions of years

for someone to put them in a poem.

 

The starlight is older than all human sorrow.

 

Let the ancient starlight brighten your mind.

 

Think of the sweet water that brings to us life,

without asking us, our names.

 

The wind doesn’t ask where are you from.

What is your religion — the earth doesn’t question.

The trees don’t ration fresh air,

as per our political beliefs.

 

Nature doesn’t discriminate;

but we do it every day.

 

We should allow ourselves to be taught by nature,

before we allow ourselves to be taught

by philosophies, ideologies and holy texts.

 

III

 

The rain falls over tired minds,

the seasons change,

and the flowers bloom.

Poets of the world write lines of love, truth and wisdom.

But no one listens.

This is how it has been, throughout history.

 

Poets keep counting the wars, the stars

and the cobwebs.

 

They sift through all wreckage,

make poems out of all things broken.

 

Great truths don’t occur in a crowd.

In solitude, the poets seek words,

to undress the invisible and the unseen.

 

Like children, the poets are all about

hide and seek.

 

Beauty happens like a random grace.

The soul still lives — is the dissent.

 

Humanity marches ahead

over the corpse of humanity,

blowing the trumpets

of ‘us and them’.

 

IV

 

Life is a magical enigma;

the humans are the characters of an absurd theatre.

 

This is how it is.

This is the sad meaning

of our wondrous existence:

the enigma and the theatre.

 

This is our fate.

 

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Devdan Chaudhuri, contributing editor of The Punch, is also a member of Calcutta-based group Poetry Paradigm, which has collaborated with 27 establishments (cafes and hotels) in 8 cities in four countries who will offer a free coffee/tea with an original poem on March 21 to celebrate the UN World Poetry Day. This poem was written for the occasion.