My village calls me.
It wishes
That I should turn my childhood
Into children’s films
To display on the mind screen
And watch them.
Showering love,
The adjacently flowing stream
Asks me, "Do you remember me?"
How can I forget it?
I keep hearing my dances in youth
Beneath the banyan tree on its bank
As rhythmic sounds of drums.
The messages in tunes
I sent to the welkin,
Lying reverse on its dry sand-bed,
Are buzzing even now.
I recall how I innocently asked
The maize-cobs risen just them
When they would be ready
In my hands to relish.
When we, the boys of my age, united
All streets of my village
Joined us playing rhythms.
Sometimes the running calves
Sopped in a sudden.
Nodding their heads
Joined us extending their company
All the incidents
Keep flashing, on the screen of my mind,
Scenes after scenes,
When the village calls me
It all appears
As if my mother in the form of the tomb
To be calling.
Although my mother is not before me
She is alive in the form of my village.
Source: Dr. C. Narayana Reddy's poem Ekkadunna' from Vaakkuku Vayasu Leidu : A Collection of Poems, Vareinya Creations, Hyderabad, P47-48
Published
Poetcrit Vol: 36 No. 2 July-Dec, 2023
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