Silent Towers Wait
Only darkness.
Filtered through.
Veil upon seam veil.
Life sustaining veil.
Comprising increasingly.
Denser earthbound air.
Only darkness filtered through.
Till it seems intensely blue.
Until appears aerial illusion.
Heavenly threaded palette.
Painted through composite.
Strands upon stretching gulf.
Encompassing life web strand.
Embryonic space.
An earthly atmosphere.
A birth blue sky.
Rise through
multiflorous veils.
Find yourself
quintessentially
soul washed.
In mind blowing
soul encompassing
solar blackness.
Cold eternal
solar emptiness.
Then find
yourself
soulbound
earthbound
castdown.
In world below.
There’s no sky really. Where will
it begin? Where are ends?
Define it. Through striving effort see.
Through researched
study effort prove.
Perceived sky’s an illusion.
As is. Light deficient.
Midnight blue.
Malabar Hill
stretch rocky ridge
out overlooking
Arabian Sea.
There we shall build.
Towers Of Silence.
Time will pass. Born
on heat stifling breeze.
Now mist time erected
centuries old. Five Towers.
Each is circle life circular
several hundred space bound
feet in sacred circumference.
Island environs uniformly
defined. By stone walls.
Interlocking massed masonry
divisions. Twenty thirty feet high.
A doorway arches appropriately
through each separating wall.
Time comes again! Time comes again!
Once Humanity Possessed
had awesome power over.
An intuitive sense perceiving
cosmic inherent identification.
Viewed life force vibrant aura nature.
Collective soul not separate isolated
individualities. Loss collective sensory
beauty. An all encompassing perceiving
psychic vision integral spiritual value.
Continue to see creation
spirit fusion soul beauty.
For there is transcendent
spiritually inherent beauty.
Ancient mourners knew.
Death as life celebration.
Continuation enfolding life.
Loved ones custom dictated
envied honoured on star journey.
Towards new transcendent life.
On an iron bier
corpse is carried.
By professional
bearers. In
celebratory
procession.
Mourners
joyfully
follow
paired two
by two.
Joined hand
to hand
by white
handkerchiefs
held
symbolically
between.
There be a path
tread doorway.
Within dividing
wall sealed stone.
Through which
accustomed
corpse bearers.
In procession pass.
Carrying tribute
paid burden
through thoughts
cycle time
sealed entrance
doorways.
No one
else may enter!
Structured circular
platform
awaits prostrate
within.
Paved with large
carefully laid out
ceremonial
stone fitted slabs.
Into three shallow rows
containing open receptacles
is circular platform divided.
Fittingly protective
hallowed outer row
is used to honourably
receive husk body
offering claiming
deceased males.
Given next
is hallowed
female dispersal
resting place.
Children fittingly
consecrated occupy
an innermost
hallowed row.
It is sacred right
perfect complete
circular symmetrical.
Exposure
burial
honouring
community
dead is ancient
enlightened
body soul
recycling scheme.
Bodies gifted
to efficient
hungry vultures
celebrates cyclic
waste efficient
unifying nature.
Dignity attained
upon within
each final
adieu tribute
sculptural pedestal.
Cremation
would be
wholesome
clean though
burnt body
is waste
denied
substance.
In gardens
adjoining Towers.
Vultures arise
from lofty palms.
Growing within.
Each Tower Of Silence.
Scorching heat.
Bleaches down.
From zenith.
Swiftly vultures.
Tear clean.
Deposited prey.
An hour. Two.
Only sparkling.
Newly bleaching
white bones. Remain.
Bare sun
dried skeleton.
Later
appropriately
cast.
Within towers;
central womb;
receiving pit.
On ancestral moist tropical land.
To bury dead beneath ground.
Is proven an unsanitary measure.
A waiting ripe host corpse breeding
strenuous highly contagious disease.
Vultures are organic quick. Spread no
dangerous contagions. Contract no ills.
Bones social strata originating
structuring both rich and poor
mingle lay eternally bound together
within each central silent tower.
Through centuries
crumble to
intermingled dust.
Mingling together
through millennium.
Be weeping joyful,
let your eyes shine.
Mourn not.
Death is no dread
termination.
Rather a natural
continuation.
In cyclic cycles of life.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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