Reaper’s dDomain

The Reaper’s Domain.

I'm the deity of the ardent flame,
Crafting all creation in forms sublime;
The emblems of demise and human aim,
The founts of change in the world, are mine;
The channels of birth and the wreath of bone,
And the bright romance etched on temple stone.

I am the master of pleasure and ache,
Of the bane that slays, of fecund bliss;
I govern the pulses of vein and heartbreak;
A brush stokes passion, a glimpse dismiss;
In the chill and heat of my faintest breath,
Is the potency embodied of Lust and Death.

The river, robust and swift, my altar below,
It flows, like humankind, its perpetual flow,
To the vast ocean from unceasing snow;
Mine is the Source, and mine the Impulse.
That goads all creation to incessant convulse;
And my likeness is Death, at the portals of Life,
Ever-present, eternal, a constant strife.

Though a thousand shrines spill crimson flood
From victims slain by the chanting priest,
Will a grand deity come, enticed by grub?
Of adoration, or melody, or feast,
I care not; rather, that millions expire
Every passing hour, fuels my mystic pyre.

And the essence of thought and all wisdom of man,
Is the covert saga that my symbols span;
Do you search for God's aim, or His grand design?
You may discern your fate in my fable's line:
For the cycle of life in its bloom and demise,
Is the scripture that inscribes my temple's guise...

In myriad tales and diverse guise,
In sacred groves and bustling town thrice,
I am the Reaper, whom none can surprise;
I am Death, tread by a fair damsel's device;
I rule the surges of the sentient sea,
That rise and fall to all eternity.

You may implore and supplicate for those born,
They arrive like dew on the morning lawn;
Your pledges and watchings I deride with scorn,
The spirit lingers not, the phases are gone;
All existence is the game of the force that whips,
In the twirl of my capricious worshippers.

Let my sanctuaries crumble, aged and grey,
Let my idols shatter, they had their say;
On their chiseled rocks the ancient sage
Has etched the charms that forever engage;
My semblance may vanish from stream and glen,
Yet in Love and Death, I reign without end.

Kishore Vastani.