1.
In the twilight of life
If you can see
When you turn back
one friend who stood for you
One memory which haunted you
One friend or one memory
If you have, you have not lived in vain

2.
When my mother’s stories
Turned into midnight dreams
When formless fantasies
Turned into wandering butterflies
On the days when leaving paper boats
Drenching in pouring rain
We invited scoldings
When we ran after the shrubs
Chasing bees
When screaming we flew bitten by
Honey bees for poking their hive
Clay toys, doll games, petty fights
Those days that never return
Yet longing never ceases
For these are my real friends!

3.
When we enter our
Friendship garden of yester years
Shrubs welcome,
Wee breeze greets,
Tiny flower chats
Every branch asks after our welfare!
Only the pathway you walked away from
Mocks, mercilessly!

4.
When I hit her womb hard with my fists
Mother felt joy, gave life to ‘I’ in me
When I rode on her back crushing her
Mother laughed, sharing her laughter with me-
When I refused to go to school
She pleaded, explaining the meaning of life!
When acts I indulged in
Destroying her peace of mind
She bore with patience lighting me-
When I flew away growing wings of my own
She proud of me, stayed back in her own den.
Mother is ‘creation’, mother is ‘patience’
Mother is ‘love’, Mother is ‘amma’

Original: Kiranprabha (Telugu)
Translated By: Kallury Syamala

Kiranprabha has been writing poetry ever since his student days. He established himself as a poet and earned a lot of readership for the innovative genre, photo-poetry, he started in 1984 in Pallaki. He published more than four hundred of these photo-poems in almost all the magazines of the day. He was the founder editor of Sujanaranjani between 2003 and 2006. He is currently engaged in his own web journal Koumudi and has been successfully floating this magazine for the readers in India and abroad since 2007.
For the last two years he has been conducting talk shows for various radio channels. Brevity, clarity and rhythmic expression of ideas that most his readers can relate to are the hallmarks of his success.