ODE TO TENDER BREATH
Dr. Raparla Janardhana Rao
Even with my forefathers you stayed
Entwined in my parents too
Descended into my life’s temple, an abode
For you, tender soft and silent,
Breath! key of life, and all actions.
You made my initial cry, a journey’s start
Commencing my life to
my parent’s joy
The long wait over, I was a tiny babe
Crying, sucking, puking, kicking, staring
You’ve made me, what I am.
Through a life of events passionate
Steered me, you, in the tempestuous phase
Learning, earning and forming family
In all strife and stress, you lived with me
Turned me into a father, and a father’s father
Unfolding this life, enhancing the completion.
O Breath! These years you’ve been with me
But how it will be all when you depart
Will be just a ripe fruit’s fall, normal
Or a struggle within, with your enemy
That snuffs the spark, with gloom all over
Or will you bring me a chariot ethereal
To lead me on the odyssey to a new world
Ere you depart me, realise me “Soham”, “I am that”