What a relief
lungs of my soul feel
to leave Hyderabad behind
and float away into the air!
Thoughts begin to breathe again
after many months....
"How could this being live so long in the
poisonous air of that dreadful city?"
so saying, the trees of Nilgiris gently drew
me into their lap.
I wake up like a flower in the mornings of
hyderabad and walking in its roads I turn into a
rumbling volcano, ready to erupt .
I walk
holding up my pants, treading the post-
independence civilization and poetry that the day
of hyderabad vomits on the roads, like a chronic patient!
one should write poetry only in these roads.
Looking at government-marked faces, every next minute, all cannons in me burst.
Exhausted I look at the trees pitiably and say
" I do not want poetry"-
I want a bomb crammed with a thousand earthquakes!
How many such volcanoes, like me, are not walking in these very roads?
Seeing and breathing the carbon dioxide of this obnoxious civilization,
why these trees blossom flowers, why don't they bear bullets,
I shout at them;
This city, is my cup of poison, thrust into my hands by fate,
commanding me to drink!
All my passions and intoxications are in it;
It is here, that I lost my worlds and gained them; it was here
that my life alternated between gain and loss endlessly
in the cold-blooded race of life.
It is in these roads, that I ran like a howling storm,
and fell like a boat, that lost its sails-
I am going
carrying my memories
In search of a balm for these wounds.
life here spares nobody, ignites fire from man to man,
O bird! do not sing your song here,
fly away, in search of your own green hills.
* * *
In the city of man, in spite of hundreds of
people buzzing about, time, has the upper hand.
It is only the voice of time, that is heard, as
the single domineering voice, superceding all the
millions of voices of man.
It displays the portentous fingers of its
impeccable hands in all the clocks of the city. It
throttles the voice of man, ruthlessly with those
inexorable hands.
It descends on the chest of man, like an
iron eagle of gigantic shape.
But here in the hills, there are not days or dates;
there is not another single soul either;
time, which chased me to this place
collapsed, unable to follow me through the leafy,
and melodious labyrinths of these hills;
strange trees, stranger birds, smiling and defiant hills,
and the immense solitude that sleeps in the hearts of hills....
all collude and weave a spider's web of silence here, in which
the Time is caught like a tiny fly and meets its death.
The feelings of this place are like flowers
unsmelt by anybody before. The tree-tops here can
be reached with eyes only and not with hands;
Over the heads of those trees which are brushing
on the canvas of sky, a large white cloud rolls
by with big strides.
Breeze, lazily knits a delicate net out of
the breath of flowers, all around, in the blue space.
In the powers of unknown happiness, man
changes into melody, and flows in the bodies of
birds and hills; Man leaks away from the
gripping fingers of time's hand.
Even the little insect which flits around on
its wings in pure innocence and freedom, enjoys
the happiness gifted to it wholeheartedly by
creation, to the same degree as man can.
The insect is no less than Man, in the
borders of this land, where the hills rule.
Here the power of Man's ego, vanity and will
are abolished without a trace-
The unpolluted condition of pure life, alone
has the right. That is why I dragged Time into the hills and killed it.
* * *
When I was in the seed, I heard a note.
Desire stirred in me to sprout and see the sun and sky.
To drink the nectar of wonder in silence I became the tree.
I became the dream of the tree in its branches which is to say,
I blended within me, the melody, the essence and the scent;
and became the flower.
Because it is only as a dream, that I can
comprehend the secrets hiding in me.
In the dream was revealed to me, that
earth, water and air are different forms of the same matter,
and that I, combine within me the ultimate content,
the quintessence of the three. Soon after
this realization, I became three-
Wore colourful wings. Became a butterfly
and ran after myself.
Dipped myself in the leaves and came out
as parrot and ate myself, the fruit,,
I became a fish, forgetting my shorelessness,
swam across waters for unknown shores...
I am a tree, all this is the journey of my life.
Autumn anoints yellow on my leaves,
wind removes my garments, mist sprinkles holy dew
over my nakedness; and I the tree like a king
after coronation confers imperial gifts of
cool shades to the scorched earth.
Day is flying its thoughts in the blue sky
turning them into pieces of white clouds.
Hazy breeze is breathing life into my limbs. And the fruit
hanging in the branches looks in wonder at the tree,
which is for ever flowing, dropping leaves and bearing new ones,
and again shedding them like a stream of life endlessly.
The fruit wonders about the secret of this tree!
It bathes in showers of leaves that come down
at the slightest touch of the wind, feeling the bliss and beauty
of the falling leaves....
May be , fruit is the seer, who went into depths of meditation,
to learn the inscrutable secret of life.
It sees life in death, otherwise how could
death be so beautiful, is its enigmatic question!
Even a thousand seasons of spring, cannot achieve the grandeur and
beauty of a single nude tree, which has renounced
all its leaves and flowers...
Oh, I am bathing in beauty,
I swoon in the storms of subtle and deep pains
which beauty inflicts on me.
O what a tree this this standing grandeur
where is its secret?-so thinks the fruit hanging to the tree.
It realises before it drops from the branch that
the seed of the tree is inside itself and that
the I of the fruit is no other than the I of the tree...
My Nation In My Soul
Seshendra Sharma
(C) All Rights Reserved. Poem Submitted on 03/19/2020
(2)
Poem topics: alone, autumn, beautiful, breath, butterfly, cloud, fate, feel, fire, fish, freedom, green, innocence, journey, loss, people, power, solitude, song, space, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Write your comment about My Nation In My Soul poem by Seshendra Sharma
Jamie: I love it so much
Best Poems of Seshendra Sharma