K. Satchidanandan
BURNT POEMS
I am a half-burnt poem . Yes, you guessed right, a girl's love poem. Girls' love poems have Seldom escaped fire: father's fire, brother's fire, even mother's, an heirloom. Only some girls half-escape: those half-charred ones we call Sylvia Plath, Anna Akhmatova or Kamala Das. Some girls, to escape fire, hide their desire under the veil of piety: thus is born a Meera, an Andal, a Mahadevi Akka. Every nun is a burnt love-poem, addressed to the ever-young Jesus. Rarely, very rarely, one girl learns to laugh at the world with that tender affection only women are capable of. Then the world names her Wislawa Szymborska. Of course , Sappho: she was saved only as her love poems were addressed to women. (Translated from Malayalam by the poet)
OLD WOMEN
Old women do not fly on magic wands or make obscure prophecies from ominous forests. They just sit on vacant park benches in the quiet evenings calling doves by their names charming them with grains of maize. Or, trembling like waves they stand in endless queues in government hospitals or settle like sterile clouds in post offices awaiting mail from their sons abroad, long ago dead. They whisper like a drizzle as they roam the streets with a lost gaze as though something they had thrown up had never returned to earth. They shiver like December nights in their dreamless sleep on shop verandahs. There are swings still in their half-blind eyes, lilies and Christmases in their failing memory. There is one folktale for each wrinkle on their skin. Their drooping breasts yet have milk enough to feed three generations who would never care for it. All dawns pass leaving them in the dark. They do not fear death, they died long ago. Old women once were continents. They had deep woods in them, lakes, mountains, volcanoes even, even raging gulfs. When the earth was in heat they melted, shrank, leaving only their maps. You can fold them and keep them handy : who knows, they might help you find your way home. (Translated from the Malayalam by the poet)
THE FOX
Fox is my name. Dying of cunning. Trapped in my own tricks. Not wanted by the woods nor the village. Hunted down from sunlight to moonlight. First I discovered fire. That grew wild and burnt down the forest. Then I invented the wheel. That turned into tanks and sowed death all over the earth. Then I invented wings. They turned into fighter-planes and filled stars with darkness. I invented war and spread hatred among friends. I sold arms to kin so that they may fight one other. As they fell I came out from behind flowers looking for blood. Thickets no more hide me; nor valleys provide shelter. Rivers refuse me water. Sparrows nudge me and fly away. Hares unite against me. Forest-paths no more lead me to victory. My howl of triumph is now a suppressed sob. With my power I can now punish only myself. O, Bodhisattwa, once you took my form; now teach me your simple ways. Give my thoughts the voice of love. Fill my begging bowl with milk instead of blood. Teach me, Bodhisattwa, how to survive myself.
Translated from Malayalam by the poet.
The fox was one of the forms that Buddha (Bodhisattwa) had taken in his passage to salvation through several births.