IT’S MAN’S THAT’S LIFE
Dr. C. Narayana Reddy
The sea that craves for change
Seeks to leap like man
How sorrowful is the sea’s life?
It swells but never leaps up to reach the sky
Squirm like a worm at night,
It never crosses the threshold
But it’s man’s that’s life
Barely six feet tall
He, furrows the skies with the sickle of his head,
And imprints on the starry constellations’ foreheads
The millennia in the making
The sea has no other go
But to imitate man
How dare the sea match
Man’s flaming spirit?
He explodes silence with a deafening sound
And makes a devastating flame of thirst
The sea then,
is but a bird twittering in a cage
The sea and the woods
The desert and the highway
All dance to the tunes of man
Man who is indeed a soldier
Who daily sounds the death - Knell of death.
(Translated into English by: Prof. C. R. Visweswara Rao of S. K. University, The original poem was in Telugu ‘Batukante Manishidi’ )