I seek His hallowed presence
Making my skepticism-paved way
Into the sea of faith-charged humanity
Multitudes of shaven heads
Bony wrists with computerized identification tags
Endless queue complexes resonant with Govinda chants
The air is camphor-fragrant with exquisite anticipation

What brings them here, to these mystical mountains
This amorphous group of perfectly ordinary men of faith
And transforms them into ethereal creatures of extraordinary beauty
Suffused with surrealistic energy?

Another time, another world
Separated by five hundred years of history
A saint-composer sang ecstatic songs in His praise
The Lord’s own gilded Sword
Which cuts through layers of time-accumulated sin
Through myriad musical compositions

A tiny rock-covered niche in this ageless temple of stone and gold
Hid the mystical secrets of God’s own poet-composer
For four hundred long years across time.

O Annamacharya, I salute thee from these heaven’s portals
Which once reverberated with thy divine music
And through you, transcend the limits of my own physical existence
And attain His boundless Grace.