I can hear the owls again. Can you hear their soft tu-whoo, The courser’s sharp kwik-kwoo, The call of the sole moorhen? The night is quiet again, So the nightjar can sing too. And a sporadic moo, I can hear it now and then! The little crickets court; With love-ballads seldom heard Their talents do employ. What is it that they purport? Its music rediscovered, Now the darkness rings with joy! This was written in response to the Supreme Court verdict banning noise at night . (Published in Chants of Peace , the anthology of the 9th International Poetry Fest, 20-21 September, 2016 at JKC College, Guntur, edited by Prof. P Nagasuseela and Prof. P Gopichand .)
The message is supreme;
Born in the heart,
and lilting itself
from tongue to tongue,
throwing its scent
over wind and wave;
travelling on dots
or fingers
when blindness
or silence bar its way.
It hews itself into stone
or burns itself onto magnetic discs;
it is the message that lives
and I exist
solely to pass it on.