Badami Caves

The caves appeared like ancient wounds

red with memories of cuts and chisels 

Here the sculptors wrote hymns in rock,

summoning gods from silence,

pillars, dances, smiles, and yazhi’s 

all pulled from the marrow of stone

a myriad temples crowned 

these hillocks, humming with devotion,

ringing with conch, nadaswaram, temple bells

Now, the ruins sleep naked 

under the elements,

caught between today’ hurried tourists, 

frenzied monkeys, a bottomless need to photograph; and the irrevocable erosion of centuries.

Maybe time is a free-form sculptor.

Forgetful, burying everything, 

letting weeds grow, where once kings walked.

Or maybe it is a visionary artist 

who preserves just enough

to remind us of vision,

of the sheer will to carve eternity

into Almond-hued mountain caves

I watched the Agastya lake,

mirroring the badami caves 

Vatapi ganapati etched in hamsadhavni 

Forgotten here but not in concerts 

Perhaps time is an author 

Writing not in words,

but in shadows, in curves of forgotten hands.

What is lost mourns quietly,

but what endures

urges us to begin again.