Days and nights pass in quick succession <br />The seasons come and depart after a stormy session <br />Life ebbs out as time sports sans intercession <br />Man still clings to his earthly desires and passion <br /> <br />For attachment between sexes, passion is the glue <br />Betwixt mother and infant, love rings true; <br />In the old and infirm, it is the cud they chew <br />True devoted savants rare and few <br /> <br />With a derelict body, like a snail creeping <br />Gums bared and the hollow cheeks gaping <br />Propped up on sticks for rising and walking <br />The old man still leaves not pleasure seeking <br /> <br />Old age bids adieu to passion and emotion <br />Like the lake that dries up in the summer sun; <br />When indigence strikes, where is your retinue? <br />When inner vision dawns, the god is in you <br /> <br />Curled up in the winter’s biting cold, <br />With fire in front and sun behind; the old <br />Albeit living on alms under a shade <br />Do not desert their desires to fade <br /> <br />Your mind and senses reined in; true devotion <br />Confers eternal liberation <br />Of the soul and the insight doth impart <br />To feel the lord’s presence in your heart <br /> <br />Fill your mind with thoughts of the Almighty <br />To reconcile to the ultimate reality <br />To cast away clinging borne of human frailty <br />Through surrender at the feet of the deity <br /> <br />Indebted to Adi Sankara’s Bhaja Govindam<br /><br />Venkateswaran Krishnan Sreenivasan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/earthly-attachment/
