Busiest temple India has loved

One cloudy afternoon I awaited a time to arrive

Squatting on the edge of a pavement

At one of the busiest temples India has loved.

One of the busiest temples India has loved

To seek relentlessly in times high and low

To overpower with prayers and woe

To submit offerings and in surrender bow

To bribe and beg and whatnots we’d never know

Thousands and thousands of them in an endless row.

Each one asks for something of his own

But collectively perhaps all seeking the same

Some form of abundance or another

Some form of peace or another

Some form of compensation or another

Until the very final breath.

What is the collective directed towards

If not the sustenance of this deficient chaos until the end of time

For centuries before and for centuries to follow

Thousands will still deliver the very prayers he’s today been submitted.

Is he bored of it all?

Or is it just how it’s meant to be

This organized deficiency he’s sustained over generations

Is what keeps him in that pedestal of impossible faith.

The thirst of the collective is never quenched

And the busiest temple gets busier each day

On the edge of that pavement that afternoon

All of life seemed a thin thread snaking its way

Through that sustained organized chaos.

(Not an atheist)