Delusions [of A Kind] I Poem by kunjubi varghese

[I]


I am not an atheist or an agnostic, but
I believe in a Supreme Power,
A destiny, that shapes our ends.
Faith is often described as a delusion.
Did I ever see any one of the gods?
Or heard Him?
[Why do we mention ‘HIM’? - As though
He is masculine in nature? ]
I have no experience in any of these.
Then why should I have faith
In a non -entity to my sense?

Nevertheless, I have many a times
Held His image, idol, paintings,
And have touched them,
In a church, a temple or wayside.
In the church they give the sacramental bread
To believers as a blessed gift, from God.
It represents God and believing it as God
Tran substantiated, they accept it.
It is no more a piece of bread.
It is something more than, different than
That bread we eat daily, for our hunger.
Faith changed the substance!

When I kissed my deceased father
Before he was laid to rest,
I kissed his lifeless body, but felt it
As a Godsend ecstasy and rapture;
And I kissed my wailing old mother,
It was the body of an age old woman.
When I clinch and kiss my Beloved
I am not merely fondling the body of a woman;
It is something more than that.
And that ‘something’ is the delusion,
Illusion, or hallucination or myth.

When someone touches the feet of an idol
Or kiss the feet of a granite sculpture -that of a God,
In the form of a deity, it is not the granite or the marble
They touch, or genuflect before it; but God himself.
When you touch, hug and kiss your beloved
Are you touching a mass of bone and flesh that could
Be bought at a meat stall or butchery?
And the bliss it brings forth to the heart
And the exquisite contentment accrued…
Is not that too, a myth?

[continued… II ]