Classic Poem

They were two:
Petrified, wide-eyed,
Staring straight ahead,
Neither laughing nor crying
At the daily round of worship;
Cymbals, bells, lamps, incense, recitations.
She said: Beloved,
Isn't it boring to be fixed here forever,
Neither moving nor participating in the spectacle?
When the thought issued from her mind
He became conscious of himself,
Entrapped though in stone.
In a trice,
They escaped into the world,
And were lost in its hubbub.

She wept bitterly,
Large drops rolling down her cheeks.
Again, he struck her; she screamed:
Both abused each other,
Lamenting over their loss of happiness.
Surrounding them, like the walls of a prison,
Was the humdrum sordidness of poverty:
The state of perpetual want,
The feeling, which never quite left them,
Of dreams unfulfilled, wishes unsatisfied.
And the gradual degradation that circumstances bring.

Suddenly, he awoke, as if from a nightmare:
What are we doing here, my dear?
Shouldn't we be over there,
In the consoling darkness of the sanctum?
In a flash they disappeared,
Back to their original places
Wide-eyed and squat,
Staring ahead meaninglessly:
Two stone idols.

[From The Serene Flame]