Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao, Hyderabad
When did all the flowers bloom?
Another season coming,
Where did all the flowers go?
Was it a long time ago? (l)
How did all the flowers grow?
Love tended every one,
Whence will they ever grow?
Can they be again be grown (2)
Why do I feel so very alone?
What will make me less forlorn?
Will flowering, colours
Do they in empathy also mourn? (3)
Memory here in every stone
No tears over-brim,
Memory wind in Dylan blown
The being’s drone,
With time and med
Better left alone… (4)
The Grey-haired, overshadow
With nothing never known
Why am I so longingly, endlessly alone?
Mowed down heartlessly, alone to mourn? (5)
Reason’s time is now gone by.
No more time now – bygone,
Goodbye, by and bye (6)
Unreasonable I am
A doleful sigh and
I cry and I cry and
Look for consolation
To horizon – the sky (7)
Unbecoming am I
In years so have grown – The nasty I – A deploring spy (8)
If a past is grey and circumstances seem black,
A future of white can well be distilled,
If the being fills with light... (Haiku, adapted, 2007)
(The writer has a Masters in Adult Education from Jamia Milia Islamia. She has many years teaching experience at the school level as also ten years of experience in book publishing and some published writing in newspapers and more students’ books. Lakshmi has retired and lives in Hyderabad.)