The universe is made of stories, not atoms - Muriel Rukeyser

Chipmunks are gathering berries. A chipmunk is a large squirrel without stripes. An immigrant is an exile whose stripes slowly vanish. I am one.

New replaces old. Squirrels with chipmunks, gulmohars with magnolias and old faces in the mirror with constant new ones.

Fables remain.

Squirrels had a fable to tell of how they got their stripes, when a human god caressed them as they laboured to build a bridge of rocks across an ocean for his monkey army to cross and vanquish an island bound demon king.

So I invent fables for chipmunks and new words for home.

2002:07:28 17:30 Atlanta

Note: The fable in the poem comes from one of the two great Sanskrit epics, Ramayana. You can find the whole text of it, as retold by C. Rajagopalachari, here. The other epic, Mahabharatha can be found here.

They have been often compared to the Classical Greek Epic "Illiad", but IMHO these are both, a thousand times more brilliant and timeless!