The stone maidens of Ramappa temple These stone maidens turn you to stone If you stare at them too

long, in the sun. Their bodies are badly stuck in the wall, They lean forward in the sky of the day Seen by creatures that are still not dust. At night they come out of the moonlight For hopscotch in the chalk-lines of the sky. Then they come out in groups and dance To nobody s pleasure except god-husbands Who became stardust in the sky long ago. Their sculptor-father is a chisel s dust, From the father sculptor of all-time sky. His dust is not seen by men, not yet dust.

(About the exquisite sculptures of idealized female beauty on the temple walls o f Ramappa Gudi ,near Warrangal in Andhra Pradesh)