The Last Faith

By Anish kanjilal

The three stumps of wood — the floating hope of

humankind on a rising sea.

Above, the vultures hover awaiting to feed on the

Carcass of human pride

The mangroves tremble, the fir and spruce

exchanging condolence

though entwined by fate to lead

each other to obliteration

My poem ‘A Noah’s Ark’

a refuge for he who offers his prostrated

obeisance to the left out green

***

The lost faith in the “world personified”

Or the Last faith in the Vedic prayer which sermons

to take shelter in the “Daru”

A thought torn and split apart

As like one who clings to the horizon either

immersed into darkness or fished out to light

As like someone deciding

Either to run into the popping crease

and defend the stumps

Or to run away and be stumped out

Eventually, the apprehensive mirror reflects

Either to recover what is lost

or to have believe in what would last.

To believe in thy white — thou phenomenal

Universe To have faith in thy black — thou the

Emptiness

To rely on thy red — thou garlanded

Passion

Wearing a brown of green, beholding

creativity — I preserve my

eagerness in your blue

Show me, guide me, make me

a primitive tribal to worship thou with trust

Lead me my wood thee “Saviour

of the fallen souls”

We too resolve to preserve thy eternity

and remove the loom what haunts the men

The Nero of the newfangled world

the father to Nino

who has been groomed to be

the Frankenstein

now discovers his descendant

to lead a mutiny against the

progenitor himself

The walls of Apollo crumble

the divine tragic justice befalls

on the mortals who were too

ambitious to be the Titans

Poseidon rising...

With no Leonidas left to desist

Nino at the Gates of Hell.

Only idolising the wood so indestructible

can one attain supremacy

Only comprehending the rotation of the discus

emphasising the change of time can

one help the mind

to cleave apart from matter

He who has no material hands and

feet but transcendental senses

He who stands on oblivion

He whose round eyes enlighten the

Stygian pitch dark

He who animates the deep rooting,

The climbing of airy stairs to embrace the sunlight

The spreading of boughs to offer shade

The bestowing of the boon of fruit

and flowers — all by thyself.

Inspires Mankind to be selfless

So that the wood may “pahandi”

to leave its rootfall everywhere

***

The white silvery salt of the

crawling desert,

now exhales the heat

Hunger and thirst hand in hand,

crawl below the sandy dunes to

be carried everywhere

Holocaust in the womb of greed

awaits the ice to melt

And famine whispers,

Land, land everywhere, with no

Green to see

Like the pagodas of Herod, the

temples will collapse with faith

being fake,

The church will be ruined,

with no confessions to make

and the mosque will have no one

to say “for God’s sake’’

All these happen when we live

just to take...

***

Every time I ascend the twenty-two

stairs, singing the song of the

holy hermit,

I rediscover the divine — how man

mingles with nature

and awaits the Day

when cataclysm will reunite

all the religions in the

citadel of wood

To taste the forgotten fruit of spiritual

Food,

which will be born out from thou

O’ stumps of wood.

My Lord that day this poet

will repose peacefully underneath

the holy shroud of your hood.

***

Destiny’s destiny in Man’s hand

The past slipping into the Seaman’s Land

The future will sprout from the

barren sand.

They will flee from the lands of fire,

They will march in fear from where

burns the pyre,

will be led by Moses of their time

will follow the far away ringing

of chime

To Babylon where the woods are

still dark and deep.

A gleeful haven for the innocent

sheep

To the land of midnight sun and lark

where the colours breakfast by nibbling

the dark.

Men queue at the brim of green for recluse

to return the wild the “stumps of wood”

A safe haven for sure and not

to lose

The final restoration of the last faith — an offspring of

My mood…

By Anish kanjilal