Our world now writhes like a wounded worm, helpless

to escape its torment, blind

to the cause but blaming

a bug: “Stop it, stomp it, strangle it!

Too late – inside us, breeding into billions of bugs!

Kill them, poison them!

But our poisons don’t work – oh no!

Swarming with new bugs! Hopeless! Dying!”

All the while Shiva whispers:

“Beneath your terror and turmoil lies the tranquility of the transcendent.

You’re trapped on the surface mind, tossed by the waves.

Now dive to the depths and merge with me.

In my bigness a bit of bugness won’t panic you.

You’ll gain immunity to the insanity.

Come on down, look around,

here is where your Self is found.”

*

The author of eight books, William T. Hathaway was a Fulbright professor of creative writing at universities in Germany, where he currently writes, meditates, and hangs out with Shiva.