I WALK INSIDE A CLOUD - K. Satchidanandan (India)

 

I WALK INSIDE A CLOUD

-         K. Satchidanandan (India)

I walk inside a cloud

like the moon walks at times,

and at times, Michel Jackson.

The valley’s breeze caresses me

like mother does at times and

at times, a banana leaf.

Red flowers glisten on the hilltop

like desire does at times and

at times Ashan(1)

 

I tread softly;

on the mountains, every stone is a goddess

While wondering if this violet flower

would turn pink if I name it ‘love’,

there appears before me :

a dancing blue waterfall.

‘Leela’(2), she says, ‘ I am the eternal beloved’

‘You are death’, I say, ‘a blue Menaka’.

She disappears into the mist

with a scream; only a light remains.

 

It is because I write in that dim light that

my poems become fireflies with a

dark present and a bright future.

 

Now light may be.

That may be the beginning,

the genesis we always insisted

was not this , not this.

The story is yet to begin,

inside the cloud.

 

I am a Yaksha(3),

you won’t understand my language.

( Translated from Malayalam by the poet )

 

Notes: (1) Kumaran Ashan, a great metaphysical rebel poet of Kerala’s renaissance (2) Leela, one of Ashan’s famed female protagonists (3) Yaksha is an otherworldly being.

 

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