Southern Cross

 

And every time, there’s emptiness

I look to the Southern Cross,

That, there’s kings as well, by mortals us

Staring at their loss

 

To lose it all, you ever had

And move to distant skies

Some keep staring with their lonely eyes

Others, turn to stars all wise

 

We struggle all for thousand years

Bereft of poor a home,

So much we see but its emptiness

In the parsecs that we roam

 

Trishanku stares, He knows it all

The passion in these tears,

Exiled ‘tween heaven and earth

Now for a million years

 

Were those stars enough? The Universe?

Was it worth all left behind?

In the nebula of your eternity

Was there a truth to find?

 

I don’t know the starlight you have seen

I don’t know what you’d say

All I know is from loneliness

In the years I’ve been away

 

That, despite the trials and quests we have

Despite the laurels won,

Despite the trillions in the Milky Way

There is a single sun

 

A single page to tether it all

Across epics that we write,

That single shrine where we return

To rest our souls at night

 

It is Home that showers strength to heal

The deepest cuts and scar,

But what of those who have trundled deep

And travelled too afar

 

They stare at night at the Southern Cross

And look at stars that mourn,

That yearn for home in the mortals’ earth

Than be in heaven all alone…

 

26^th November, 2023

 

Hindu legends recount the mystical tale of King Trishanku, who wanted to go to the Gods’ heavens in his mortal body. The great seer Vishwamitra performed a yagna to lift Trishanku to the heavens but was opposed by Indra. In anger, Vishwamitra created a new universe of his own, parallel to Brahma’s, full of their own devas, and placed Trishanku in that parallel universe. Today, many regard the Southern Cross as that alternate universe created by the great seer.

This constellation seen in the southern hemisphere adores the flags of many nations in this hemisphere including Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Brazil and Samoa – while not impossible to be seen above the equator, how the ancient northerners in Vedic times could see the Southern Cross remains as intriguing as the creation of Vishwamitra’s parallel universe.erse.