"Deep conundrum" [gnomic whatsit]

Shankara broke the ice as a musician
Ganapathi cut his teeth as a poet
as to who was the original physician
or first painter?   I don't know it

beginnings all abide far in the past?
the future hides a certitude of sequels?
when the universe's fate was being cast
the equation's deep conundrum was the equals


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for Bill Marks

[Shankara = Siva.] An initial draft of this had the first couplet as

Siva was the primal musician
Ganapathi the primordial poet

-- which remains the (intended) underlying sense. But the poem overall seemed to call for a more vernacular edge.

Technically, Ganapathi [Ganesha] is thought of as a scribe -- i.e., it was he who wrote down the text of the Mahabharata as it was being dictated by the poet Vyasa. I don't know whether there is any-much support in the mythology for the assertion of the above poem's 2nd line. Sometimes one anyway makes these leaps; from one angle or another, it strikes me as an acceptable line, at least whimsically. (While Siva is noted for having created the first vina, Ganesha is often depicted as the primordial drummer; but that's another matter. Here, we claim him as poet.)