“Far above is the sky
Far below is the Earth.
You are the Earth
I am the sky.”
Aha !
how profound!
give food to fill my belly
give dreams to fill my sleep;
who is the giver here,
who the taker? all our
daily acts depend In this give-take.
“He is the God; and “she” the slave
And how “gratifying” this life
falling at His lotus-feet.
Language too, like the roti-dough.
cannot take
any other shape; when rolled out
it has to be a round / a triangle.
Step-by-step, cross this thought,
deftly, involuntarily; the steps
then take a deviation; If the feet
keep moving along the deviance,
a new path will be cut.
A NEW LANGUAGE WITHIN US
Where was it hiding
all this while? Was it there
standing next to the kitchen-sink
washing the utensils? Swinging
to a doze, catching up on sleep?
Ours is a new world,
There is no God,
no giver,
no taker,
There, language has no speech
And speech has no arrogance.
This … should at least be dreamt of.
Translated by Chitra Panikkar from Kannada.
CLAUSTROPHOBIC
A Square-
The kitchen, the hall, the bed-room
A neat square.
The mattress, the cot, the bed-sheet
A perfect square.
The book, the table, the chair
the thought-stream;
everything is within
this square-barrier.
The door, the roof, the wall,
while tiles laid on the floor,
finally,
the fragment of sky
the ventilator admits in
have all, corners four.
The roundness of the Earth stands suspect.
If the words jump out,
If they crosss the page ,if
they escape the meaning-barrier,
then varying limits,
for the soundless forms.
Here, sense of space
changes to its converse
space spreads endlessly…
(so much of space
lies within S P A C E )
