Friday, July 13, 2018

Caves of Inner Gloom









             
                                                         Section  --- I


                          In the dark winding caves with narrow ways

                          With scary boulders and rocky columns

                          With scattered bones, ashes and grinning skulls

                          With stone-made axes, spear-tips and tools of flint

                          With odd figures and beasts scratched on dusky walls

                          Like primitive men seeking shelter in caves;

                          Engaged in daily strife with savage beasts and foes

                          In caves of gloom in far away African wilds

                          Or Slovanian snow-ridden icy caverns;

                          Our world survived outer hazards and Nature’s fury;

                          Yet bestial urge and destructive self engulfed

                          Man’s Flickering flame of wisdom around;

                          What light can open when dense darkness rules

                          The gaping mouths of caverns within his mind?

                          His willful closing of his narrow vision?

                                                 (  I  I  )

                          The ice age cometh and stark icicles

                          Icebergs and crags of gigantic shapes

                          And bone-biting chilly air may gnaw our flesh:

                          Yet before, man’s mind hardened with bloodthirsty craze

                          A hollow icy cave with gaping gloom ;

                          Devoid of noble thoughts to light his onward ways :

                          He lost his inborn bright spark of heaven

                          He sank into the depths of lust and endless greed :

                          We shut our feelings in dark night of despair

                          Our so-called knowledge led us into blind alleys

                          And men like their primitive predecessors

                          May smash their skulls and tear each other

                          Eating the flesh of brethren and bleeding hearts :

                          Or worse like a foolish miner petards the entire world

                          With dire atomic weapons with perverted mind

                          To end all lives in disastrous ways to dust.

                          And then we will not spare our bones even

                          Or grinning skulls for future to realize

                          No fossils and no wrecks of steep-sky scrapers

                          To guess our heritage and mad, mad craze.

                               ______________________________


                          
  Albert Einstein :

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Even a 'limited' nuclear war could trigger cruel nuclear winters and global famine.                                      

   1)     African wilds ---- reference to the Pork-Epic cave in the east of Ethiopia                 where cave paintings are seen done by primitive humans nearly sixty                     thousand years ago.

  2)    Slovanian  snow-ridden icy caves ---- reference to Snezna Jama cave                        which is full of snow and artistic natural ice creations, and stalactites                     (white pillars formed by dripping of mineral salts form the cave roofs.)

  3)    Icy age cometh --- A long-term reduction in temperatures of earth’s                          surface with expansion of continental and polar ice-sheets and Alpine                     glaciers. This occurs due to increase in carbon emissions and greenhouse             gases and also due to explosion of nuclear bombs.

   4)    petard ----- a wooden box filled with explosives  (blast )


                          **********************************************

            14th July, 2018                                                     Somaseshu Gutala
 

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