A Sea of memories

A sense of river barraging to heart

And expanding to a sea.

Running along the wakes with launch-eyes.

Treading down the steps … to enter Nagarjuna Hillock.

Every inch of the ambience reverberating with

‘Submit to Buddha! Submit to Buddha!’

Just as script warps with repeated writing

These stones, too, became shapeless with times.

As fleeting enthusiasm peps one up

Though, many a heart ache anchored in the heart,

These relics of the museum… are mummied memories.

This cool night, wind breezing over Sagar

Down the hill-colony, wafts scents of jasmine.

Leaving all mockeries to man

Animals dot the landscape.

Behind their apparent steady silent flow

Waters of the Krishna conceal their solemn past.

A suffocating feeling in the arms of darling River.

A soulful experience of

Seizing moments in fist before they sieve through.

Smooth sculpted banks like closed eyelids.

Rows of food fests like sweet clear water springs.

What use is money saved

If one can’t prostrate before her feet once?

Not sprinkling few drops over head

But the whole of ETTIPOTALA

That lifts your spirits so high?

With restless shower of cherished feelings

Winter apparel journey towards warming up February.

And over there, marks of river

Making a man off a machine.

What wonders man can’t create!

What use is life if one can’t go there even gasping?

Memories of Acharya

Who could show life in death

Will be etched on the petrified hearts:

‘Submit to Buddha! Submit to Buddha!’

The quintessence of preaching

In the form of wide bricks excavated

Transports us to BC in a tick of time.

And for the innocence of Bougainvillea and Ganneru

Locked in the plaits of a foreigner

And trapped in the little hand cams

My heart leaps up in pride for their Indianness.

Did anybody watch

A river turning into a cataract, then into a sea,

And then darting into the mind like a fantastic dream?

I did. I heard

Holding my breath submitting to its acoustic density.

For forty eight hours I was

Watching that wonderful view of vively viva.

River to sea, a riverine sea,

Capturing its beauty in my memory’s net.

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Translated by N.S.Murthy