Foreign tongue

 Foreign tongue

Poetry is a foreign tongue

Tracing indecipherable contours

On a page

Until it bypasses understanding

In words

To leave sketches in emotion

Until it bypasses your mind

To stir your heart

Then poetry sprouts

Among the words on a page

And in our experience

It is not to be understood , but felt

Known in the depths of feeling

Not the shreds of analysis

And we learn to feel, relate

To a foreign tongue

Until it turns familiar

Poetry is

when the other

becomes our own .

—shubha

Why do we need poetry?

Why do we need poetry?


To let Love call onto itself

To let it sing it's own songs

To be it's listener

To be it's witness

To be it's instrument

To hear it speak

In the silences between.


--shubha

Poetry breathes

Poetry breathes

Poetry breathes, in pregnant pauses,
In the emotions evoked, feeling, it arouses,

Not just in the words,that it, make,
But in the nectar, that ,your burning thirst, slakes,

Not only in rhyme,meter,form or length thereof,
But that, which your heart recognizes, in love,

Poetry resides, not just in pages,
But in your heart's own knowledge, of the ages.

--shubha