NOT ONLY IN
HUMANS
-
K. Satchidanandan (India)
There is poetry not only in humans
But in objects too
This chair carries the memories
Of guarding wayfarers from rain
When it was a tree.
This table carries the proportions
And fingerprints of the carpenter
Who made it.
In this book, men and women
Keep loving and falling apart,
Joking and weeping.
This floor is full of
Vanished footprints
This wind carries the odours
Of so many men and beasts
Even in this rock are
The remains of some
Extinct animal
Sea is a liquid beast
Roaring in the land’s iron grip
It grew so blue being in
Love with the sky for long
It is the eyes of those who were
Drowned in the river that are
Reborn as its fish
Those who eat them
Are eating landscapes.
It is the lines a girl
Scrawled in her notebook that
Pours down as rain.
Think of it, and there is
Poetry in everything, except in poetry.
In it there is only the self -love
Of human beings, and
Their desire for immortality.
Poetry is nothing but the mourning
For some lost language.
Or, the vain scream for a world
That may never come to be.
****