Baidyanath Temple, Deoghar Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The Shiva-lingam,
The arti,
The scent of flowers, bel leaves,
Water, milk, honey and ghee
Poured over,
The prayers sang,
Offering offered
With the eyes closed
And the hands folded
Seeking for redemption
From papa, adharma,
Sins committed unknowingly.

The rock-built temple
With a small door
For coming and going
And the mast over the pagoda,
A big rope hanging from
But with the trident and flags
And the red sacred threads
Tied with the Hara-Gouri temple,
The panda inside and outside
Telling of Har, Har Mahadeva,
Shiva-Shankara,
Gouri-Shankara.

The temple complex wide and vast
With the deities all around,
But the Shiva temple the main temple
The construction of which I cannot,
Its engineering I do not,
Everything but a mystery,
A mystery divine of ancient India
As we wrote it not,
How the hill was cut and made,
So careless in taking a note of!

But it used to pain my heart
When I used to see the lepers,
The blind and the infirm
Sitting at the entrance to the temple
And asking for alms
And frankly speaking, on seeing them
A split used to intercept me at the psychic level,
I used to get emotionally disturbed
With my reverence ever so held in strict confidence
And on the other the plight of theirs
Letting me not enter the temple.

How had it been the temple in the past,
How is it now-a-days,
How the crowds and the modes of conveyance,
How the people doing business,
How the things easily available,
Flowers, sweets, water, incense sticks,
How the Shivaganga pond,
How the crematorium attached to,
How the olden tales of it
Frightening us
When loneliness was a foe of man the foot traveller!