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About the indian festival of light - Diwali from the epic the Ramayana. In the end, I mention Tolkien and his own epic, oft read and deeply moving.

Festive is the mood as we many lamps do light
A dhuni to keep us contemplating on into the night
Contemplate the events when Rama and Ravana strove
The 10 headed demon spewing 10 forms of unhealthy love

I no longer know fact from fancy but I believe in the reality of story
That it matters only whether we believe in this or other theory
For full of truth and meaning are these epics from my country
Does it really matter our beliefs - cant we take it all very literally

As real as maintains a living influence on the heart
It's time we listened, perhaps go back to the very start
And realise there is no full and final pralaya or armageddon
Just a cycle as around Lord Vishnu's navel we wax and wane

What better day than diwali in which to gain afresh some data
Reading and renditioning the ramayana and mahabharata
The vehicle of the gita that speaks of the coming age
In which 300 years have passed - by Yuki reckoning we gauge

There is but one epic I dare breathe in the same breath with tears
For it tells of a Siege of the Devil's Stronghold of 500 years
Mortality a gift and in which so many heroes and kings didst fell
Gone to the halls of Mandos and the undying lands, bypassing hell