Don't hide poetry in silken robes,
don't load it with glittering ornaments
Let it be just that like a lazy dawn which even without adornment
captivates the heart
Don't bind it in Sanskritic patterns, grammar, and definitions
Don't shackle its body
with the rules of rhyme and non-rhyme.
Let it cry in the helplessness of the helpless,
let it laugh in the laughter of a child
Poetry is neither the applause of the stage,
nor a glittering commodity of the market.
It is beautiful in its rawness
like the rhythm of rain falling on tiles,
the sweetness of a shepherd's flute,
or the silence of a farmer gazing at the clouds
Poetry breaks down walls,
opens windows
from where anyone can peek
into the sky within themselves
It sprouts suddenly like a neem sprout
on the doorstep of a house.
Let it flow in its own rhythm
Let it thunder from the sky on the earth's body
Let it pulsate to the rhythm of an unheard rhyme and whenever
its sensitivity stops,
its pulse becomes silent
then don't pay it a tribute in words
just write its letters on some old paper,
on the bark of a tree,
on a child's palm
Watch from there
how sensitivity blossoms,
how a new greenery grows,
how the next poem is born
