At Least a Drop
Dr. R. M. V. Raghavendra Rao
How many times have you not
Anointed your mother
With your kidney’s waste?
Were you sensitive to it
When you were showered bounties?
How many times have not your callous nails
Hurt the jasmines plucked for worship?
O devout one!
For your sustenance
Are you not piercing Mother Earth?
Are you the carpenter bee not to
Feel the agony of honeyed flowers?
Are you not ravaging Nature, the giver?
Flourishing without feeling to be a receiver!
Don’t you shed a drop of your own blood
In compassion?
Don’t you owe commiseration
To your mother and Mother Earth
As your felicitation?