Nothing Remains - Sreekanth Kopuri

Because you want it.

Because everywhere desire goes off. 

Because watch! the Earth

has many alarms set before time.

Because learning flints

the sphere of ideals.

Because brains pour, down 

the drain, like nothing on earth, now 

and then, wing, waxing darkness. 

Because knowledge towers,

sign nature off, its wing beats, 

off bird, calls. Death.

Because tremendous graphics 

in the geo-dynamics change 

with the stream of conscious learning.

Because we sentence the Earth 

with capitalised letters.

Because we plasticise 

the comfort zone - 

a zeroed-in conception

Because hereafter 

summers over lap winters and

much green turns into burnt sienna. 

Because wars, tree-shades, 

pandemic-made outdoor shelters 

and mercy camps de-fine home, 

hereafter keep us wait in the Sun 

for the leaders' uncertain merciful consent

And poetry makes nothing, 

happenstances, 

fleets as meteorites, of passage.

As long as the world is not too much with us 

and the earth remains undone 

by our lust for unbecoming desires, 

Nothing Remains

Originally published by San Antonio Review, September 2023 

Sreekanth Kopuri Ph.D. is an Indian poet from Machilipatnam. He is the Current poetry editor for The AutoEthnographer Journal Florida, Writer in Residence, Athens. He worked as a Professor of English at Dravidian University. He was a Pushcart Nominee in poetry for the year 2022. He recited his poetry at the University of Oxford, John Hopkins University, University of South Florida, Heinrich Heine University, University of Caen, University of Banja Luka, University of Gdanski and many universities. His poems appeared in Two Thirds North, Arkansan Review, A Honest Ulsterman, San Antonio Review, Chicago Memory House, Tulsa Review, Digging Through the Fat, Expanded Field, South Broadway Journal, Contrapuntos Untethered Review, A New Ulster, Vayavya, American Diversity Report, Plants & Poetry, Burrow, Rational Creature, Nebraska Writers Guild, Poetry San Jose, Oddball Magazine, to mention a few. His forthcoming book From an Indian Diary was the finalist for the Eyelands Book Award 2022, Athens. Kopuri was deeply influenced by Jayanta Mahapata. He was awarded PhD on the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra from Sri Venkatweswara University, Tirupathi in 2019. His book Poems of the Void was the winner of Golden Book of the year 2022 Award.