Bronze Mirror Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Twenty centuries ago Chinese craftsmen fashioned
A mirror of bronze. It was a design of a circle
With a central inset square to represent
A cosmological scheme. The hub symbolized
The earth with twelve terrestrial branches.
Mythical beasts and creatures were inscribed
Around the emblematic diagram. A motto round the rim
Perhaps gave clues to invoke the forces of creation.

Savants say India too thought of Cosmos as ‘Srishti';
Their Tantra symbols had recondite significance,
‘Mandala' art arose from the tribal unconscious.

Reading this in a book some forty years ago,
I was bemused. Is there a cosmic design wherein
We are minuscule dots in a divinely ordered pattern?
Time has neither beginning nor end.
Every dot has its inner design.