By O.P. Jha

Let me salute the souls

that drink the furies of tides

with their tumblers of oats

Let me salute the souls

that feel the sensation

hidden in splashes scattered

on the succulent lips

Let me salute the souls

that create a light-house

for guiding the boats

Let me salute the waves playing

between boats and the lighthouse

keeping the treasure of life safe

even in rise and fall

in the splashes from waves

I see petals of my civilization

mingled inside and murmurs

on the lips of mankind

as some roaming words exhaled

from the core connect me

with the unconnected

some wave-reflections reside

not only in my eyes

but they continue to smile

in my heart also.

O.P. Jha’s (pronoun: He/him) works appeared in more than one hundred journals including Rigorous, Mantis, In Parentheses, Shot Glass, Odessa Collective, Backchannels, Poetry Pacific, Five Fleas, miniMag, Iceblink, Infinite Scroll, The Rome Review, Kelp, pulplit, The Hemlock, etc. His poems are in anthologies We were Seeds and We are Resilient. X: @OPJha17