☛ We are inviting submission in the field of literature and literary theory in the form of article, book review, poem, short story, travelogue and interview for our regular April issue (Vol. 6, No. 2). The last date for submission is 31 March, 2025.

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?

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