The Word Supreme And Cosmic Ethics Poem by Ananta Madhavan

I well remember books from childhood days,
Turning the picture pages and the pop-up tales
Of story-tellers from the West. Some were vivid
Visual invitations, spurring the child to imagine
Castles and adventures in undiscovered lands.

When I was ten Father got me a kids' encyclopedia,
With stories, poems and some simple history,
Explorers, inventors, maps and geography.
I found that books could tell me much more
Than what I could find from a small boy's orbit
Round routines of school, banyan tree and play.

I loved Gray's verse, elegiac and terse:
"But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll."
The sense and pathos came to me with age.
Books are no surrogates for life, but play
A role which Search engines may do for us.

I think of God not as idol or Force.
I am no atheist although not pious.
But I was touched that Victor Hugo wrote:
"The Word is the Verb and Verb is God."
Later great R. Buckminster Fuller
Said, "God to me is a verb, not noun,
Proper or improper." We have to act
In ways consistent with our Cosmic bond.

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Notes:
1. Thomas Gray (1716-71) : "Elegy in a Country Churchyard",
a famous poem, has impressed me with its diction since
I was ten. At 83 years, I stay impressed.

2. Victor Hugo (1802-85) . Famous French writer - novelist,
dramatist, poet. ‘Les Miserables' is a renowned work.

3. Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) . An American inventor, architect, designer and thinker, is known for his innovative and futuristic ideas like ‘the geodesic dome'.