If poetry is allegory,
then the master lures with opioid orchids,
sequestered in the great depths of western range,
the master cultures the flowers to omnipotence –
the hatchlings suckling on nipped buds.
Mature, they scour the seven directions of the continent:
the master’s guild summoning their allegiance –
saddled fireeaters rushing porpoises in the gangetic hunt;
clawswyrm tilling the stepped arteries of the far east;
Old, they are the roofs of cities in the south,
their shackles bending the city basin.
Their shackles welded by their own sunburnt madness.
And released, they can think only as those who bear wintery embers.
Old souls, their asylum created in their death, they seek
their own rot and carcass,
in flight north to final winter,
and in fleshy death startled eternal
as kindred fire of the guild.
composed by LakshmiNarayanan Ayyangar