Navarasas - Karuna Poem by Shankaran Kutty

(Karuna is extreme compassion or deep sorrow)

I stood at the beach last morning
The pain inside, growing
Like the waves that rumbled in from the sea but
Unlike them that died a vagabond’s death
On the sandy shores of the beach
My grief
Only grew stronger with the tide
To corrode me, my soul
The very truths of my existence
To meet its end
Along with me
When?

I looked around to see
No living being, alive or dead
Even a ghostly laughter
Or a ghoulish howl
Would have been to me
And my parched soul
Like the sweet nectar
From the depth of the ocean
But no Mohini
I could see arise
As my grief engulfed me and withered
My battered body and mind
To its inevitable end.