CUT-GLASS
Dr. Rabindranath
Menon
Cut-glass and diamond glitter
both play games with light
One is proud it can scatter
rays with sharp - edged might.
The other cuts nothings,
its name almost a misnomer, that came
from its purity and brilliance
and its pristine dalliance
with processes that care.
Perhaps the prebirth pressures
impart to diamond its sneers
and heartless hardness that spares
none in its long march to fame
and fortune. As it dares
to slice through, and tame
the world, we oft forget
that diamonds’ life is itself set
by cutters. Experiences whet
appetites, we see the past
moulding the present in a recast.
Diamond’s is a role of revenge,
be its obsession to dazzle
or its strength to sever, a stone-henge
marking its power and muscle.
Cut-glass on the other hand,
decorates, and is so fragile
it’s shattered by a fall. Mere sand
its origin, no pretensions, its style,
simple, elegant, transparent.
Value depends not on price,
birth or publicity’s caprice.
I’d rather be a cut-glass than
a diamond with its class-clan.