HERITAGE: WRITING AND BOOKS

In different parts of the world humans started making

Marks, etches, and scratches to show the sounds of spoken words.

Such scribbles tried to convey thoughts, feelings, and ideas

Through agreed upon symbols: These were the fertile seeds

Tha gradually  gave rise to the various written scripts

Of the world’s many languages that are our ancestral gifts.

This great stroke of genius to write the sounds that we make

Did what none had  imagined: It conquered both space and time  

For, all thoughts and ideas, when they are written down,

Can be carried far and wide, and  stored permanently.

Posterity  can read and savor them, and learn from them too.

Etches were first made on clay, palm leaves and such.

Thanks to them we now  have countless old precious relics

That convey thoughts and stories of our distant ancestors.

LITERARY FORMS

Literatures of the world  come in a variety of genres.

Some are novels, some plays, some are short or long stories.

Quite a few are mythologies, and some are long sagas.

Of such variety of works there are some that we call epics.

Epics are generally long and in poetic meters.

Practically all of them are linked to specific cultures.

Many survived for centuries, not as manuscripts or books

But through the oral tradition which needs rote repetition.

Now let us to bring to mind some great epics that belong

To our collective heritage, though linked to specific cultures.

Had it not been for scholars who translated them from their source

They would have remained within reach of only some  peoples.