Of Why's and How's

NaPoWriMo may be over, but poetry never is. On the last day of the month long challenge, the prompt from napowrimo.net was to write a minimalist poem. I looked at some short forms and wrote two other poems that I eventually didn't share.
This is the first of those two other ones.


I was experimenting with a form called Magic9, which uses the rhyming scheme abacadaba (Basically,  spell Abracadabra and take out the R) but I was also trying to revisit the prompt from Day 28 to write a metapoem.
So here you go,  a somewhat minimalist metapoem written in the Magic9 form.

And here's the second poem, written in the form of a Korean sijo poem, a 3-line poem of 44-46 syllables.

I meant to share those poems ages ago but then I was writing my neverending PhD thesis and the blog kinda got put on a back burner, but then a couple of days ago my mind veered off into an existential ramble during morning papers and so I thought I would share that. Ahem. So here goes nothing.
You know this expression- how certain people seem to match your wavelength and certain people don’t. I wonder where that expression came from. Why wavelength? Is it from the spiritual idea that our souls can connect on a non-physical plane that transcends time and Space? And that plane at some point connects to the laws of physics- of waves and strings and particles? Is there a Theory of Everything that can explain what we are, how we exist and why? Especially the why? The teleology of it? Why do we exist and where do we go from here?
Yes, there are pockets of meanings within this plane of living- moments of shared joy or sorrow and little things and songs and laughter and all of it that makes life beautiful but WHY?  Either we exist as a chemical accident that created the conditions that would evolve to induce life at some corner of the infinite universe at some point of time and then there’s no higher purpose and then what is the point of all this raging, anger, rebellion, conquest, doing things that turn your heart to lead because you ought to, the tearing down of others because we want something for ourselves and for how long? A lifetime? A legacy of a couple of hundreds of years? Or there is a plan in all of it, which is, what? And round and round and round and round we go in circles.


(Namit Bhasin is a poet who depicts life vividly, poignantly & deeply.  Find his work here)
If Omne vivum ex vivo is true then where did the first life come from? And why? One of the surprises I had growing up was learning that Congressmen in the USA, that land of Jurassic Park and Nobel-winning scientists actually debated on the floor of the House to keep Darwin out of the school syllabus. Strange, because when I read my first picture books on Creation and Evolution, it didn’t occur to me to not believe it. I was fascinated by that glimpse of the wonders that the universe held; that is all. But if Darwin was wrong, and someone fashioned us out of clay, why did they do it? In the grand narrative of virtue and sin and heaven and hell and apocalypse, what is the ultimate end being served? I could ask of course who created the Creator, but that would just go on.
There are theories that say that at soul levels we are united and pure, and we incarnate as physical beings to experience difference and evolve to a higher consciousness. But if the end is that undifferentiated soul-plane, what purpose does the cycle of karma and spiritual evolution serve?

And that's it. Ramble over. If you think I asked 'why' too many times,  it's just a side effect of trying to figure out a research question.
And while I go back to my thesis, if you want to read more, you can read my travelogue on Antarctica here. Or you can simply take a look around here in the archives.
I also made an ukulele cover of Jenny's Song from Game of Thrones/Avengers Endgame fanvideo to celebrate finishing the 3rd chapter of my thesis. It's the first time I've tried something like this so do please check it out. Click here. And use earphones or turn up the volume. Thank you.

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