---

A.K. Ramanujan - Elements of Composition
Work rating: Low

Composed as I am, like others,
   of elements on certain well-known lists,
father`s seed and mother`s egg

gathering earth, air, fire, mostly
   water, into a mulberry mass,
moulding calcium,

carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,
   into a chattering self tangled
in love and work,

scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,
   only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things

like Stonehenge or cherry trees;

add uncle`s eleven fingers
  making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
   of panic on sister`s face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map,
   of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there

after the riots, downtown Nairobi,
   that a friend carried in his passport
as others would

a woman`s picture in their wallets;

add the lepers of Madurai,
   male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
   clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
   moving as nothing on earth
can move &mdash

I pass through them
   as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,

millennia of fossil records
   of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
   a legend half-heard
in a train

of the half-man searching
   for an ever-fleeing
other half

through Muharram tigers,
   hyacinths in crocodile waters,
and the sweet

twisted lives of epileptic saints,

and even as I add
   I lose, decompose,
into my elements

into other names and forms,
  past, and passing, tenses
without time,

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
  being eaten.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.