The Sickness (a poem)

[Sitaram]

The sickness slowly grows and overcomes,
Gradually encompassing particle beside particle,
Drifting passively along the soft blow of time.
And the fleeing spirit is the next to last,
Fleeting, meekly seeking refuge, essence
From the deadening fugue of the low death-hum.
And bleeding sadness imbues the deserted hulk.
The minute, methodical breakdown then sets in.
And the gentle crumble is tympani
For the recessional of sense.
A bleak cloud, a fog, a dull smell, difficult to breath,
Reaching from a swamp, a log, a marsh,
A still pool, musty in its own quietude,
Where only an ago,
The subtle rumble of life in generation
Triumphantly disrobed in all beatitude.

The cymbal sounds of ending after beginning.
And it is simple in its verb and tone,
Unmasking the up-reaching complexities
Of leaf and limb,
Rendering the utmost mystery
To meaningless cacophany.

Ululations of the struck degrade
In the parade of undoing passing,
The undoing of culture and of nations,
Of animals and children and of love,
The tintinnabulations of an ungodly whim.
The muffling of sin unto nothing.

So something is played into nothing.
The din dies unnamed.

- Sitaram
(circa 1966)