Some people have no faith in a divine order or any universal order for that matter. Others keep moving in and out of faith depending on the latest set of circumstances. Yet others are converted to faith where they had absolutely none before and these are the ones who then are the most ‘faithful’. As for me, I sometimes think I must be some kind of freak because never even for a moment have I not had unshakable faith or trouble with an emotional response to matters of the spirit. An astrologer said from my horoscope that it reflected in full measure this quality, indicating that this was because of circumstances in previous lives – that such unshakable faith was not quite a common thing. I have tried to arouse doubt as an experiment, but I can answer all the questions raised by Mr. doubt as if I was the highest paid advocate presenting my case in the Supreme Court – it doesn’t work. Indeed my father was like that and I may have got influenced by that but then again none of my other siblings were so affected. In India we use the term ‘Sanskars’ or accumulated effects of past lives. My poem is a true story of what can happen to ones faith, so one cannot rest assured that nothing can change you or your beliefs, and that is scary.
D Y I NG F A I T H
My father said on his death bed
That his faith had gone,
He who had tutored us in ours
All his life long,
Now shrunk like a child
Immobile on his cot,
The daily ritual of prayer forgotten,
The gods on their alter forlorn
And lacklustre
Like his fading form.
The wicker lamps darkened with carbon,
The ungainly flame deformed
Into a giant red sun
Bloating with its own demise
As the shadows leaped upon
The books he had authored on
The purpose of creation.
We who could not share his loss,
Failed to reassure him
Who had been so meticulous
In reassuring us, as if the paralysis
In his hand had reached his thoughts
Which could not grasp at straws
And he sank into oblivion
And spoke no more
As the drips sought to hold his pressure
And the tubes fed him on.
Then like a distant dawn
A smile appeared upon his lips
As when he would score an irrefutable point
And as the pressure dropped away,
His face was cast
In faith at last.
The last stanza flows with the ultimate harmony of all that is and I’m sure was a moment of rejoicing for you and your family. Thanks for sharing this intimate poem. –Dennis
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