THE CREATOR
MAHAKAVI
SUBRAMANYA BHARATI
O
Life, who knows your greatness?
You
are the God that we see.
All
laws are made by you,
All
laws are undone by you,
You
are the wind,
You
are Fire,
You
are Land,
You
are Water,
You
are the Sky;
You
are the Creator of all lives;
Your
job is to change all things that change;
the insects that fly, the tiger that kills,
the worm that crawls, the countless lives on
this earth,
the many species of countless lives in the
countless worlds,
all these explain your power;
we have respect for creatures that live on
earth;
in water and in air;
in one square-foot of air there're lakhs of
germs unseen;
there’s a big creature,
inside it are small
creatures,
in these creatures are creatures far smaller
than they
and it goes on like this;
everywhere life exists,
a big creature, a bigger one, a still
bigger one;
an atom, a smaller atom, a still smaller
atom;
there’s no end on both the
extremes;
O
poets, let us worship all lives;
“Namaste Vayo, Tvameva
Pratyaksham Brahmasi.”
–Translated
from Tamil by R. SUNDARESAN