Rocky Couple (Long Poem)

                                             Rocky Couple

I thought it would be
Another sundry morning

Of course, it turned out to be
A glorious autumn morning
A late fall sunny day
Much of the translucent foliage is gone
No more dazzling wavy
Tree reflections on the
Now almost passive Erie Canal
A tiny boat may still wade through
But it’s a rare sight

Now
Its banks are visited by
Bikers, walkers, or joggers
And lots of birds, squirrels
Spotting an occasional heron 
Is an additional blessing;
Though its locks, canal ways
Look quite decrepit now -
With its broken cement structures
And rusty decaying concrete edifices
Yet, the real nature never abandoned
This once magnificent transportation canal
An artificial water way
Sure,
Years back it brought prosperity, trade,
And modern culture
It reminds me about my own
Native village in the coastal Andhra
A nostalgic boyhood place –
Thousands of miles away
Now, decades of time, and thousands of dollars
Separate us

Up on the mound
Near the wooden bridge
I stopped
Stooped to look into the trickling waters
Flowing from the upper overflow drain 
Just overlooking the intricate 
Connections between the adjacent wetlands
The canal and its feeding streams
There
On the concrete ledges
Some thing awakened my consciousness
“The soft cooing pigeons”
As I stood there motionless
The pigeons courted each other
With their elegant preenings
Peckings 
One of ‘em,
Would gently strut around the other
Touch its beak; give generous
Dose of kisses
And then both would just fly off
To a private hiding place 
Under the bridge
Again they would emerge
Land on the terrace
Take a nibble of the white
Calcium deposits
And do the courting ritual again
To me, the couple
Looked like a pair of 
Gandharvas or rishis
In their clandestine form
From some fabled Hindu mythological
Story.

Me thought
How lucky these little birds are?
They need no Internet cafes, Starbucks lounges
Or cyber matching websites
How totally free, generous are these
Rock pigeons
They meet sans inhibitions, nest,
And raise their young
Without the headache of
Babysitters or kindergartens
Love just comes to ‘em
Naturally
How hard modern man has to struggle
For just a morsel of true love
Be it the carnal bonding
Or the emotional warmth

Through the morning gentle rays
I saw their healthy feathers
Their iridescent neck down
The spotted bluish coat
With their double grayish bands
They radiated perfect health
That pigeon couple
To me, they were
The ideal romantic couple
The whole world exists
Just for them
And they held the key to
Its (true) creation. Copyright 2025 by the author

Shivering Earthworm (Poem)

Shivering Earthworm

Everyday I go for a walk
Often along the same path
Through our wooded neighborhood
But today
My eyes caught 
The sight of a shivering earthworm
Barely it could move a millimeter
Clinging very tightly to 
The asphalt rough terrain
Dragging its shriveled desiccated skin
Basking in pale sunshine
On a chilly autumn morn.

Siva -
What a name?
That which is auspicious 
Anywhere, every-where is 
Encapsulated, contained by Him
He is beyond gender,
Beyond man’s imagination
He is supposed to be
Imminent, eminently present
In eight things – rather embodiments
Earth is one of them

The naked, exposed earthworm
Despite feeling extreme cold
Almost at the end of its life
A brief, harmless 
Purely a benevolent existence
Now lonely, without a friend
Asks only one thing
To feel with its intense desire
Once more, last wish
To embrace the bare rocky
Rough, belly scratching surface
Of earthly path
I admire its pure desire
All desires must be pure in their approach
Then they won’t bring sour feelings
Or utter disappointments in their wake
Its last longing to 
Cling, embrace tightly
The kindliest of all
The only One who
Takes us into His hands
At the time of death

There was a time 
A time when I would wonder
Why people in Indian pilgrim centers
(Why they) cover their dark
Deteriorating bone piercing bodies
With white ash;
Roll over their bellies
Or crawl steps with bruised kneecaps
All the way to a Durga temple
A Siva’s abode
Despite terrible bodily pain
Why? Why they do?
No, I never had the slightest contempt
Or slight towards ‘em
Just I did not understand then
Because I was too stuck (thick) with false rationality
Intuition was missing in me, so too was love

But now I can feel
Sacredness in all human struggles
Desires, failures, and triumphs
Inexplicable holiness pervades
The Earth

Would I be able to
Have the same intensity
Purity of attention
In that final moment
To just reflect on
On only one thing
The vast nothingness
Only on Siva, nothing else
Would I be so fortunate?
If not, 
I submit now, immediately
To That
The source of creation
With a silent bow,
With all the eight limbs
Flat as a stick, horizontally on the floor
I remain in total silence. © by the author 2025