Arrogance

The Gandaki yields,
That ultimate confluence
Of the Preserver and the Destroyer,
Sudarshana or Vajra keeta,
A fossil or Divinity’s Rest House.
Vrinda, deceived or felled by arrogance,
Being Born of his ire, the child of anger, raged,
Ruled the three worlds, imperilled the good,
While a god in arrogance raised his hand.
When blaze meets spray the tobie born
Soon grows formless, directionless
Glowering and all obfuscating.
Then the heart-piercing ray –
Warring with divinity is to lose
One’s heart of darkness –
Transforming the clay to that energy
Which commingled with the great Eye.

Ravichandra P. Chittampalli was formerly Professor and Chair of the Department of Studies in English, University of Mysore, India. He was the Northrop Frye Fellow, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Shastri Fellow at University of Western Ontario and K. Tirumalachar Fellow, Dhvanyaloka, Mysore. He was formerly the President of the Indian Association for Canadian Studies, and a Director of International Council for Canadian Studies, Ottawa, Canada. His poems have been published in India and internationally by The Sunday Mail, Lakeview, Otherwise Engaged, Aurora and Blossoms, and Aloe. He now lives in Malaysia practising poetry in English.