Salt is white,
like sadness –
gleaming.

Salt is
nothing but
sadness.

One-third of the Earth’s waters
are actually the tears of the world,
from where salt is born.

Since we eat salt, our blood is salty,
tears salty, sweat salty,
even the heart.

The heart is the storehouse of sadness,
a treasury of salt, that’s why the heart patient
is not allowed to have salt.

We experience sadness because
we eat salt, that’s why
one-third of our lives is full of sadness.

Salt is still our favourite;
we cannot eat without salt,
nothing tastes good without salt.

We eat salt without rhyme or reason,
we experience sadness without rhyme or reason,
tears of joy are salty, so are tears of sorrow.

Children don’t have salt.
We need to add happiness, meaning sugar,
in their milk before they slowly learn to love salt.

Then their mothers announce to the neighbours,
their children don’t have milk now, they prefer
only salty items, only salt.

That’s how children
fall victim to salt
fall victim to sadness.

Even trees love salt
salt helps them
grow.

I don’t know if wild animals love salt, and even if
they do, I don’t know where they get them
but domesticated animals sure love salt.

Feeding them salt,
their owners want them
to partake in their sadness.

One day, salt asks me, what’s my relationship
with elephants that when an elephant is killed
it must be buried in salt?

And asks, do powerful animal
have some sadness inside
which must be covered in salt?

I do not answer;
how do I explain to it the science of man –
even salt is an emotion.

Salt will remain even after humanity goes extinct,
salt will remain
even when the Earth ceases to spin.

Because then God will shed tears
and tears mean salt, salt will remain –
it will remain as God’s tears.

This is salt –
deep and mysterious,
which has given us so much.

It has given us to swim
an ocean of tears, it teaches us
the beautiful, beatific lesson of sadness.

O salt,
I salute you,
salute you.