Life Substance Poem by Praveen Kumar in Celestial Glow

Is it money, power and name
Or merit, contentment and peace
Constitute the triad that stands life.

Money, power and name come
Never but with hard manipulations,
But money, power and name bring
Self-feeding swell of recognitions
In mammoth balloons that rise high
To heaven and do burst very soon;
Money, power and name together
Clothe life with glamour, grandeur
And stop all stigma so not to reach;
They have no root, no content within,
They touch not the core of the life
But fill all life with sound and sight.

Merit, contentment and peace reflect
Inner strengths from deep within,
Add strength to strength for evolved life;
No recognitions here save lateral,
For no inner strength needs pat on back;
Merit, contentment and peace flow
In slow steps to steady target,
In slow growth to fulfilment;
No adornments here, no faux pas,
Dictated from within, straight forward
They flow from soul and build soul,
But live and die unknown outside.

Is it money, power and name
Or merit, contentment and peace
Constitute the triad that stands life.

Merit, contentment and peace bring
Substance and strength to life's carriage,
While money, power and name invest
Shape and contours to the life's passage,
But seldom the twain ever meet in life;
For, each breeds on the other's carrion,
For, each feeds on the other's pain;
World needs each for the other's growth,
Like work and rest or land and forest;
Each leads the other as inseparable twin
Like light and shadow or leader and led;
Both enrich the life in impoverished world.