Why write

Why write a poem
As mundane as it is
What is in you

I write not
To win over the world
As finding peace

I strive to see
If I am still alive, yes
And that you are too

Poems that do
Reach our heart to mend
Heal our spirits

Read a poem aloud
Even if in the bathroom
Said my Professor

Leela Narayan,
Student of Dr. Kumar
Nizam college

Was a beautiful
Life being her student
I recollect often

I will write more
In my coming days, soon
Hope not to part

Prayer

Swirling in the air

With their frolicking

Skirts made of petals,

Roses and violets

And the rest of the

Freshly bloomed florets,

Dancing in the sky as if

Singing the Rumi songs

In His praise silently

On Hysterectomy

She was a home, of kindness
Through hardships and happiness
Through pleasure and pain
Blessed me with family
And suffered all the pain
I pray that she attain Nirvana
For all the things she endured
I am sorry, I hurt you so much
Still you bore all the pain silently
Forgive me for all the atrocities
That you patiently took
With knives, scissors and razors
That were used to pull you out
For bearing harming outgrowths
From my abdomen and discarded away
May you attain nirvana, my children's home
My precious womb, going through such pain
After going through my hysterectomy
I am sorry you had such hard times..
Bless my family, mother goddess
I am feeling much better now
Now that I said it, although sad...

Amen

when I am gone away

 a million years from now,

dust to dust as we find each other

drifting in the wind and lying around,

like specks on pebbles washed out by sand

how very beautiful would it be to find each other,

as particles of dust, separated since millions of years,

reuniting with one another, as a union of soul-mates long lost,

to become one in the tiny form of dust from earth or may be stars

I hear sounds of oceans, reverberating since eons as I meditate upon

a new awareness dawning on me that, you and I have always been and will

walking hand in hand, along the surface of earth as earthlings that are never lost

and the dust that we are treading upon, the dirt on the roadways and the hilltops alike

could have been us in some unseen and unknown past, waiting to touch the feet of Sri Rama

may be by a whiff of the wind or sprouting twig, be born as a flower, or may be a grain on the terrain

Life sans life

Looking at people
As I am looking at myself
Scores of pores over the skin
Pouring thoughts from mind to pen
I see my carcass in my image,
It is smelling of dead body cells
Emitting odor, not bearable
Like shedding of cells from the skin,
And sweat is only an odor with no life
It is equally mortal
Except that it is still a sign of life
Because of this burning soul
Is this me or just that the world is this way...
Thoughts pondering
I see, when I am gone, how people may look at me
Perhaps, it is not so much as how my body looks
Perhaps it is also what I felt and did and said
May be one day, we will all see one another eye to eye
If not now may be later..
Until later..

Uma Pochampalli