Mirrored, Mirroring
Of Sea and Mountain
When at a friend's exhibition of paintings
The works are wonderful
And the crowd substantial
And you feel a sinking boredom
Which you would not have felt
Had the paintings been yours
Or at a friend's exhibition of paintings
The works are not wonderful
But the crowd as substantial
And you feel pity and anger
For and at your friend
For and at the crowd
And at yourself
And on both occasions you rush from the gallery
On to the road
To fill your lungs with air
That is not bitter with your imperfections
Then O sea I think of you –
Your unbroken chain
Of deep salt waters.
Or when a tired ageing woman
Turns her back
On my examination table
And I see the knuckles of bone
Over which her coarse skin
Stretches – the beaded spine
From neck to tail, I feel
The blows this back has taken,
I know the exhaustion
These ribs still try
To keep at bay,
And I know that this back
Is mine, that tomorrow
I, like her, will fail to withstand
The endless burden, and will allow
The brave tensility at last to fold
Into a permanent hump.
At such times, o mountains
I long for your structure
Your seemingly immutable
Rise and fall. |
Turning Aside
They chose to settle where it is cool.
Cool is what I look for too,
under that thick mango shade.
I've arrived
with the flaming cry
of wounds between my ribs;
soul-stabbings
by smiling friends.
Turning my trunk
to see the pond better
worries the wound.
So I sit still.
The water buffaloes
are boulders come crashing
down from the sky,
dropped clear at the pond's edge.
The mango shade
stains their grey
one tone deeper.
That sleepy head
wears a mud crown;
slime gliding past
half-shut eyes,
trickling into nostrils,
cleaned out by the tongue,
heavy over see-saw ears,
clod
by clod
plopping into the water.
all this from goring the bank
to crush a flea!
They clain intimacy
with breeze, with water.
They contradict their boulder existence
by a mere turn of mandible.
Eyes dimmed
against a steady whizz of air,
jaws rotating,
gras frothing at the mouth,
the pond's surface shattered
by chin's wetted hag-prickles.
Does Yama come
rifing one of these?
It is they, then, heal
the fearful wounds
rending his frame. It is they
make him whole.
Embattled mind, settle down so
to sweet quietude. |
On Killing A Tree
It takes much time to kill a tree,
Not a simple jab of the knife
Will do it. It has grown
Slowly consuming the earth,
Rising out if it, feeding
Upon its crust, absorbing
Years of sunlight, air, water,
And out of its leprous hide
Sprouting leaves.
So hack and chop
But this alone won't do it.
Not so much pain will do it.
The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs,
Miniature boughs
Which if unchecked will expand again
To former size.
No,
The root is to be pulled out –
Out of the anchoring earth;
It is to be roped, tied,
And pulled out-snapped out
Or pulled out entirely,
Out from the earth-cave,
And the strength of the tree exposed,
The source, white and wet,
The most sensitive, hidden
For years inside the earth.
Then the matter
Of scorching and choking
In sun and air,
Browning, hardening,
Twisting, withering,
And then it is done.
|
Nargol
This time you did not come
To trouble me. I left the bus
Wiping dust from my lashes
And did not meet you all the way
Home. At the back of my mind,
Behind greetings, dog-licks, and deepening
Safety, I continued to look for you –
But my strolls continues pleasant –
I did not spot you at the end of a lane,
Your necklace pendulant as your skin,
Your cringing smile pointing out the disease:
Leper-face, leonine, following my elbow
As I walk past casual, casual.
I am friendly, I smile, I am
No snob. Lepers don't disgust me. But also
Tough resistance: I have no money,
Meet me later,
My fingernail rasping a coin.
She'll have her money but
Cannot be allowed to bully –
Let her follow, let her drone,
Sooner or later she'll give up,
Stop in the centre of a lane,
Let herself recede.
I reach the sea.
Yes, that was essential.
Discipline.
In the open street I stand
With elders. How far have you
Studied, when do you finish?
In the middle of my reply
She passes by,
I skip a word, she cannot
Meet my eye, grins timidly, goes on;
Accepted fact
This is not the time.
Afternoon, and she reappears,
Stands before the house, says
Nothing, looks for my eyes between page-turns. I cannot read.
The book is frozen, angry weapon
In my hand. I pretend a page,
Then look up – I'm reading now I say,
I'll give you later – switch down,
Master, unquestioned. She goes.
Cruel, you're cruel.
From a village full of people
She ahs chosen me; year after year;
Is it need
Or a private battle?
At the end it is four annas 1 –
Four annas for leprosy. It's green
To give so much
But I'm a rich man's son.
She cringes – I've worked for your mother.
She hasn't –
You come just once a year.
All right, a rupee. She goes.
My strolls are to myself again,
The sea is reached with ease,
Reading is simplified. One last tussle:
Was it not defeat after all?
Personal, since I did not give,
I gave in ; wider – there was
No victory even had I given.
I have lost to a power too careless
And sprawling to admit battle,
And meanness no defence.
Walking to the sea I carry
A village, a city, the country,
For the moment
On my back.
This time you did not come
To trouble me. In the middle
Of a lane I stopped.
She's dead, I thought;
And after relief, the next thought:
She'll reappear
If only to baffle.
1 Former copper coin, a sixteenth part of a rupee.
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