SENTINELS
They are the sentinels
that stand alone
to watch everything
the right and the wrong
the holy and the mean
the flame that ends in ashes
with the stark impartiality
of a sterile stone.
Good ones who drive
within
the speed-limit and wear a thin
smile on their lips lest they
betray
the storm and the
desolation
they feel in their bones.
And the bad with its
beautiful expanse
of the blood-red and the most intense,
driven by emotions to the very edge
till Time leads them over
the ledge
down into the pit of past tense.
Helpfully shedding light
wherever they could
on things alive or dead,
never minding the bad or good
–they
change with the weather, it’s said–
the sentinels are eyes of
god
who sees and unsees in the folds
of the same second, and
then withholds.
No wonder the stars
burst,
participation is a real thirst.
The day the sentinels
come down
the earth in the seven seas
will drown.
–DR R. RABINDRANATH MENON