Creation and Criticism

Dr. P.G. Rama Rao (1935) retired from the P.G. Dept. of English, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, in 1995, after a long and distinguished innings as a teacher of English and American Literature. Among his publications are The Poetic Rapture (1963), Ernest Hemingway: A Study in Narrative Technique (1980), Narrative Technique in British and American Fiction (1986), The Critic’s Eye (1993), Scapes (1993), The Wave and the Hill (1993), My Days in Tulasi Kshetra (2009 & 2014), On the Other Side of the Globe (2013 & 2017), An Enduring Picture and Other Poems (2014), My Divine Hippocrene (2015), Aesthetic Ecstasy (2016), Whispers of Immortality (2016) It Is a Beautiful World (2017) and The Garden of Eden and Other Poems (2017). He can be contacted at pgramarao@yahoo.com.

1. Light-House

I want to travel

In a mobile light-house;

A house light like a boat on water

Or a bird in the air

But has a light on top.

Think of a snail

Or a turtle

With a fire-fly

On its back-pack.

Not a standing light-house

That guides ships

And draws insects --

But a moving one

That carries light

Wherever it goes.

2. Night

"Ah! Sweet, cute babe!

How well you sleep!"

Said the great Parent

As He covered the

World with a blanket,

Black and gem-studded.

In a little while,

The sky was all Eyes

From spheres celestial;

God knows why they winked

Non-stop and what

Their shining lips said.

Sometimes appeared

The beautiful huntress

Of the sky, Diana

Of the pleasing smile

And the gentle light;

Lo! The winkers took to flight.

All night worked the

Oxygen factory

Fuelled by carbon-

Dioxide; poor plants!

They work day and night

To keep us alive.

3. A Sick Sad Island

A sick sad island

Is this earth of ours?

Inescapable

Like St. Helena,

But much much larger,

Where Napoleons

Unnumbered have lived

And killed like kings and

Died like rabid dogs.

They bore many a name

But mindset was the same;

The prehistoric

Demonic tyrants,

Barbarian heroes,

And Dictators who

Bloodied the pages

Of history causing

Cultural regression.

I am afraid the

Mindset is still alive

And active like embers

In haystacks and threatens

To engulf this poor

Sad island of ours

In a devastating

Fire; before it happens,

Let us pray for peace.

4. The Tree

They have killed a tree;

But many are cremating it.

They kill it in one place,

But burn it in many places.

They beat and bang and mutilate

The kind, patient tree

In its own home,

But cremate it in their homes

With thankful warmth.

Blessed is the gentle tree

That gave shelter, leaves, flowers,

Nuts and fruits while alive,

And gives wood and fire in death

For mankind's use.

Nature's great icon of sacrifice,

A noble spiritual symbol.

5. The Maker and His Work

"The sculptor becomes the sculpture,

And the painter the painting;

The poet becomes the poem,

And the narrator the narrative;

The singer becomes the song

And the playwright the play."

So went on the speaker

And quoted from Sage Ramakrishna,

"God made the world

And became the world."

Everyone listened

In rapt attention

As if the speaker

Became the speech.

It may be said

That having become the world

God did not know how to run it,

Even as the speaker

Did not know how to stop

Having become the speech,

Words poured forth from him like

The Niagara Falls

Which does not know how to stop.

Why should the speaker bother

When he became the speech,

Which is charged with him,

And why should God run the world,

Which is charged with Him

And runs on its own.