By Raghu Jagannathan

Foreword

Across continents, two apertures align — the keyhole in Rome framing St. Peter’s dome, and the stone square in Tanjore revealing its sacred tower. Two Hole, One View is not about architecture, but about awareness — how distance, faith, and craft dissolve in a single act of seeing. These envois speak of silence shared across centuries, of civilizations that never competed but conversed through light. Through each hole, the poet glimpses not difference, but unity — the same sky, the same stillness, the same breath that passes through all who pause to look, and truly see.

Envoi I — The Twin Frames

Through one small hole in Rome they see,

A dome, a sky, eternity.

Through one small square in Tanjore’s wall,

The same vast silence seems to call.

Annotation:

Two apertures, two continents — yet one act of beholding, Rome’s keyhole frames divinity through precision and pilgrimage. Tanjore’s stone frame breathes the stillness of Chola vision. Both reveal that sacredness begins not with scale, but with sight.→ The Earth builds differently, but yearns the same.

Envoi II — The Breath Across Time

It’s not another’s art or pride,

But breath that crossed from side to side;

Somewhere, someone, long ago,

Saw what I see — the same soft glow.

Annotation:

Here, art dissolves into ancestry. The poet’s gaze joins an unseen lineage of seers. Each viewer, across time, becomes a silent participant in creation. The “same soft glow” is both light and continuity — what every civilization has built toward: remembrance through wonder. → Vision is a shared breath across ages.

Envoi III — The Kindred Apertures

We are not rivals, not apart,

But kindred frames of seeing heart.

Their keyhole trims, my stone hole waits,

Both open into boundless states.

Annotation:

The two apertures are no longer cultural relics; they are philosophical instruments. To frame is to choose, to limit, and therefore to reveal infinity more clearly. Rome and Tanjore become partners in perspective.→ All art is a doorway into the same boundless room.

Envoi IV — The Unitive Gaze

No East, no West, no mine, no thine,

Just gaze and grace in single line.

For I am one, and so are you —The same

small hole, the same vast view.

Annotation:

The poem culminates in non-duality — Advaita through aperture. It ends not in argument but in alignment: there are no hemispheres, only horizons. The gaze itself becomes grace; the seer and the seen dissolve into one continuous awareness. → When the eye unites, the world returns to whole.