When animals become men,
What do men become, Gods?
I've searched and searched myself
And do not know.
It is a question far beyond myself,
I who sneeze and spit
And cannot go one day without disgrace.
But I do know this,
There is the wind,
There always was,
Blowing just the same on every face,
And the sea was always too,
Blue beneath the sky.
And rock and soil,
Pebble, stone, and mountain,
Most perfect of them all.
Each is as it was,
Has always been.
But should you alter,
And no longer would it be what it was.
Change it and you change its name,
For good or evil,
Call it what you will,
Perhaps they're all the same.
But the name, the name,
At least the name is different.
It has no ghosts
Or histories to haunt it.
A name, a name,
Call it what you will.
It is accepted for what it is,
Duly noted and forgotten.
But MAN,
I say the word and taunt my tongue
With such confusing tastes.
Marble figures
Ignorant of age,
A dim nimbused sculptor
Walking in the garden
In the cool of the evening,
Proud causes,
Salted with heroic deaths,
So old, so very old
That all their skins of reason
Have rotted to bare skeletons of honor.
But death, like anything, becomes a habit
Or superstitious reflex,
A pinch of salt behind you for good luck.
But what are men then,
Sentimental skeletons
Adorning uncomfortable halls?
The name, the name,
If it only were not for the name.
For only in the name is there unrest.
If only none remembered.
If only we could forget
As easily as we pray.
But names are our joy,
Our safety, and our sorrow.
When Animals become men,
What do men become, Gods?
If they could just become
Just what they are.
Perhaps some questions
Can be answered only by themselves.
But doesn't it ever strike you odd
That so noble creatures as ourselves
Should sweat?
- Sitaram (written 1965)