Waheguru, Dieu, Allah, Prabhu
Bog, Jumal, Gott, Dia,  Buh,
Shen, Tann, Thaan, Anna, Diu
Dios, Guo, Dievas, Molinno
All these and hundreds more
Names for just one Being
And, who might that Super person be
But the one, seemingly, in the skies
More likely, though, in our own Hearts
If only we’d just look,
Within.

It’s the God in the Heavens, I speak about
Not the ones of Clay that strut around,
Pretension, magnified to fool us all
Walk on air,  a wobbly foot above the ground,
And we, the people, just like them
Ordinary folks, without the ahem,
Mortals as much as they are
They, who forget how close they are
Related to the same lowly clod of
Dust.

We call Him by the language we speak
But, He is the same for all of us, one God,
He does not differentiate one from the other
No matter religion, colour, caste or creed,
Chinky eyes or little noses,
Tuxedoes and lapels with Roses,
Begging bowls or liveried staff
For Him, we’re all the same
No different are we
In His eyes.

He did not create a thousand names
To describe Him
We did,
To own Him, personally, we gave Him names
The ones you read above and hundreds more,
We created divides between Man and Man
Language, Geographies
Even, Rights and Wrongs
Much beyond the tenets of the Holy Books,
To perpetuate the ephemeral in us
And, for posterity to do the same,
Shame on Man.

We link languages to Religion
Then, tell me please what are we
All Christians,
Because what seems to unite/ disunite
The World today is one language
English,
While we attempt to thrust our “lingos” and dialects
On all on our geographic lands.

No votary of English am I
Simply, driving home a point
And, as they say
Nailing it or trying to.

Why then this silly, tragic, beyond words, Dogma
The linkage of language to Religion,
Address God as you wish, as you please
For Him, we are all one People.
Let us not create our own
Gods.

The World’s a Stage said the Bard
And, we the actors play our parts and depart,
One producer, One Director,
The cast, Us,
An evening’s Play
A nightly show
Maybe, yes maybe, the Morrow too.

Mayhem, is the one word that
Truly, for me, describes superbly the
Messy state of world affairs
And, Nature seems to be colluding
In an opaque but devastating manner
At the behest of the Almighty
To teach us a
Lesson.

O, the Wise of the World
Take off the blinker
Or else,
Drown all
Hook, line and Sinker.

(The author is a prolific poet who has over 30 poetry books to his credit. He can be reached at ashoksawhny06@gmail.com/ www.ashoksawhny.com)