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DISTANCES

 


DISTANCES

-         K. Satchidanandan (India)

 

I need to cross a sea

To go to my study,

A forest to my bedroom,

A mountain to my drawing room,

Three continents to my dining table.

 

To gather flowers I need to

Climb up clouds, and for fruits

I should cross a rainbow’s bridge.

 

When the dead put out my light

I light the moon to dispel darkness

When teardrops fall as snow

I sing to awaken the sun

to drive away the chill.

 

I open one window of this house

And summer comes in;

Another, there is rain

Winter enters through a third

And spring through another.

 

Only loneliness comes in at times

Through the door.

Silent. Helpless. Yet unafraid.

I go to sleep on a bedspread woven with

The alphabets of dead tongues

Stepping on the cries of dead birds

And the noise of crickets

 

I am not the protagonist

Of love stories; no elegies

Have been written for me.

Then who will tell me

Whether I am a living human being

Or the soul of a dead man? Or

Is it that the earth itself a nightmare

Seen by Franz Kafka?  

 

Is this my house,

Or just a faith?

Whose breath am I taking,

Whose heart is it that

Beats within my body?

 

In which of my breaths am I?

In which stage of evolution?

 

Will I turn into a machine tomorrow?

Will there be a

Tomorrow?

****