`Within the Shadow of Life’ Poem for 2014 Painting by Jeganathan Ramachandram

… we are but the make of billions of snakes

… some small and swimming the ocean of lust…this we call the sperm

… one…a mile long and wrapped in the head…we know him as the brain

… and another that folds itself like a stream downwards…the intestine it has come to be…

… the other sits moving sound…she is the tongue that wields the magic wand…

… while billions more in motion…unite with each other…river of veins and arteries they become…

… and yet many more are messengers to the pelvic rib and skull…threads of nerves they are…

… there is an even a Majestic One…standing in pride…a sculpture that holds all …the kingly spine…

… it is all snakes…serpents…worms and the sperm of life…

… and yet within all this…a moment happens

… where billions of stars appear dancing in a cyclic rhythm…

… sending fine waves of lights that flicker…

… igniting the spirit that dances within in bliss…the neurons at play!

… and there in a moment of union…billions and millions…merge into two…

… the female heart and the male mind…in coitus…

… performing the play…uniting the two into one…

… a song is composed…a play is staged…and love serenades all…

By Jeganathan Ramachandram