A HOUSE OF WOUNDS
(A Poem for Gaza)
K.
Satchidanandan (India)
I am a house of wounds.
All my rooms are filled
with blood.
A drawing room of blood
A kitchen of blood
A dining table of blood
A bedroom of blood.
My walls shrink day by day
Making it impossible even
to stand straight
Or lie down and stretch
oneself
The passages that lead to
me
Are closing one by one;
Those who inhabit me
Have nowhere to go.
No door opens to anywhere.
Walls and barbed wire
fences
Squeeze and crush us
alive.
Only the tiny bleeding
corpses of children
Dead even without a final
drop of water
Hang from the olive trees
in my compound
In the valley, watered by
the tears
Of those who inhabit me.
Arms sprout in the fields
Poisoned by the enemy.
The aggressors’ fire
spreads in every direction.
There is no sky, only the
smoke of the orphans.
Rain speaks in its ancient
language
to the unburied dead.
Nothing remains sacred anymore.
No Prophet’s voice
sweetens
The ears of the refugees.
In no eye burns the candle
of compassion
There is not even the
dream of a star
In the dark sky of terror.
I am a house of wounds in
which
Only the screams of the
landless resound.
Naked feet dream of wild
streams
And pant, longing to
return to childhood.
Seated on the back of
broken toy-horses
They chant those words,
tender with love,
Untainted by blood:
Aleph- Arnab, Baa- Baatha,
Thaa- Thufaahath, Jhaa-
Jha a lab
Jeem- Jamalun ,Haa-
Hisaan…
(Translated from
Malayalam by the poet)
****