It numbers out its days.
Mind asserts, ‘I know’, and still
It doubts its surest ways;
Unsteadier with each broken breath
Life jogs along to its proper death.
Noon turns dusk, night turns day.
Who knows, they traverse a well-known way.
Witnessed or unwitnessed still
There is a ripening inside things.
Each witnessed growth upon the tree
To roots a coiled-in power brings.
The sun is the eye of the infinite:
Life’s smallest star too does its bit.
Translated from the Kannada original by
S. R. MOKASHI