Earthly Attachment Poem by Venkateswaran Krishnan Sreenivasan

Days and nights pass in quick succession
The seasons come and depart after a stormy session
Life ebbs out as time sports sans intercession
Man still clings to his earthly desires and passion

For attachment between sexes, passion is the glue
Betwixt mother and infant, love rings true;
In the old and infirm, it is the cud they chew
True devoted savants rare and few

With a derelict body, like a snail creeping
Gums bared and the hollow cheeks gaping
Propped up on sticks for rising and walking
The old man still leaves not pleasure seeking

Old age bids adieu to passion and emotion
Like the lake that dries up in the summer sun;
When indigence strikes, where is your retinue?
When inner vision dawns, the god is in you

Curled up in the winter’s biting cold,
With fire in front and sun behind; the old
Albeit living on alms under a shade
Do not desert their desires to fade

Your mind and senses reined in; true devotion
Confers eternal liberation
Of the soul and the insight doth impart
To feel the lord’s presence in your heart

Fill your mind with thoughts of the Almighty
To reconcile to the ultimate reality
To cast away clinging borne of human frailty
Through surrender at the feet of the deity

Indebted to Adi Sankara’s Bhaja Govindam