Transcendence of Life Across Death

Oh death, you odious fiend!

I wonder your purpose, your mysterious trend.

Many a valiant soul’s perishing, you have penned,

You have broken millions of hearts,

Cost an ocean of tears,

Leaving people’s sanity spent.

What pleasure do you derive

From the eternal grief of inconsolable souls?

Why do you emit your vile essence

To scar mankind manifold?

Even the liveliest crop of youth

Is reduced to mother’s material untold.

What is this baffling aura of yours?

Everything you touch becomes blessed.

You drape people and lore

In the pure of saffron and white –

Enforcing virtue by duress

Even when they spent their lives building evil fortresses.

Repugnance feels like your essence,

Yet, when drawn close, people embrace

Diving into your chasm, eustace

The rot of inexpressible grief

Turns to subjectivity’s paramount chase

Relieving misery, pain beyond what’s expressed.

I thought you were a masquerading saint,

A historian drawing contours, providing closure,

To a narrative’s picture you paint.

But you weren’t alone. Instead, you were a tool,

Granting purpose even when you are perceived as cruel.

You unite the breath of life, even across

The calm banks of Vaitarni, a place

Where souls can, for once, rest.

You are the greatest gift to humanity,

A cog in legacy’s progress.

Perhaps you aren’t what we make of you –

You are merciful, innocent.

Your grace never discriminates –

From those who are meek to those strong,

From the valiant to the cowardly, you are never wrong.

You are the one certainty whose existence

Can never be denied. Instead, it is fabled –

Despised and celebrated for long.

I’m grateful to you, for you make hearts pump

As hard as the burning sun, just to be buried

As seeds, nourishing the past and future with my manna.

That’s the interest paid for a passionate life –

That’s worth my desire, emotions and drive. That’s how we thrive.

You give birth to ego, and you take it away without prompt.

Such magnanimity should be celebrated with pride

Not mangling it in derision’s tide.

Knowing this, all I wish for is to have a meaningful life

But an even more meaningful death.

For even the grandest of spoils in life are all in vain

When excruciating pain scars my soul –

Harrowed by the bitter twilight in my dying moments.

Blessed may be my plea for transcendence.

Written by Saurav Das for MTTN 

Edited by Ishita Sharma for MTTN 

Featured Artwork by Yatee Samantaray for MTTN