Last Rites! Poem by kunjubi varghese

Memories, amity, links through previous births,

Wealth, desires, charity, deliverance from worldly bonds,

And all, are illusory and desultory delights

Of the unknowing mind, lacking wisdom in its hold.

Only one thing remains as eternal and ingenuously true.

DEATH, and its reflection; the ensuing grief.

In the unexpected wounds inflicted in the soul.

Every step becomes warfare, like a ‘Kurukshethra’*
[* The Maha Bharatha war}

In the mind, and each moment, a Good Friday.


From a mysterious void emanate the life

With different faces and shapes, most unusual,

And extra ordinary, very much divergent,

Strange and unique, unrivalled and idiosyncratic

Entity; vivid, vivacious, and radiant

Incomparable incarnations of intrinsic worth!

For this entity called “you” or “me”, death is

The end of our world; we become naught!

When the metamorphosis through death turns me into ashes

Do you know what makes me intrepid in that state?

Your look, your tinge, your voice, the fragrance

Embracing your body, ever blooming glow

Embellishing your loveliness, your weariness, your tear drops,

And the purity gleaming in your face, in prayer!