As if an earthquake
Always happens elsewhere;
As if the pond here
Will forever be still
And as if
the lotuses with
their mouths open
will forever
gape at the skies.
What if I wake up
To see the skies fall
What if I go back
To my mother-Africa
Not your grandmother
What if the Continent of Darkness
Spreads between us
TRIAL BY LIFE
Twenty years ago
In the operation theatre
Of the hospital
Anesthesia awakened me
To you;
All at once, you emerged
From the pits of my being;
Like lightening rose
The voice of God
Blinding the face of darkness;
Green masks and cat eyes
Flashing their dangerous competence
Ready to terminate life
At its root.
I ran for your life
Salvaged you from
The murderous tools
Of the doctor, that pursued me
And entered my dreams forever
I built a cocoon around you
Protecting you from evil spirits;
From the foetal state
To your adult being
Rearing you with
The pain of repentance;
The devil and God have
Battled in me
We both burn
In the passion of your revenge
And remain suspended
Between life and death
As if on the operation table
Both of us
The centre of the universe
With green masks and cat eyes
All around us.
ARRIVAL
JAVA HOUSE, IOWA CITY
Café au lait
Unleashed from the contours
of a smile
I felt the American Indian
feel me
with his brown native eyes,
reaching out from just above
the edges of the table pushed against the farthest wall,
on which hung his portrait
with his arms as if
resting on the table
In Java House
amidst the buzz of
alien coffee percolators
and strange twangy English,
he and I waited for the first move
he with his crown of feathers
I with the perfect round
teeka on my forehead,
both Indians in exile
one on his own land
the other for whom
the rising of the sun
was at once its setting
as on her own land
seven seas away
In the corner stood our witness
The piano with its
stern, philosophic countenance
European in its temper
Pregnant with sopranos and crescendos
Our homeland
we agreed the horizon
where all the Indians go
after they die
Delicate rings of smoke
rose from coffee-cups
and the songs of silence drowned the piano;
Inside Java House
earth met the sky
us to reach
homeland.
without dying.
LAILA’S CALL
(Dedicated to Mahmoud Abu Hashhash)
O Qais, the eternal lover,
If only you could come out
Step out of your mystical yearnings
Walk out of your longings frozen in verses
And see your Laila, hear her pounding heart
Feel her lamenting soul
If only, Qais, history could release you
And geography could bind you
You, camouflaged in clouds of love
Travelling through time and space
Century after century
Blowing images of Laila into caves and tombs
You fettered in words and epitaphs
Laila stuck forever on the potter’s wheel
Rotating between the cups of your palms
Your fingers chiseling and shaping her forever
But Qais, Laila is whole
As the complete circle of the full moon
A planet amongst planets
Your poems are the gurgling waves of the ocean
Leaping to reach the skies
And withdrawing merely with the reflection
Tired and limp on the surface of the placid waters
Love is a blessing
Says Laila, not a curse
My Majnu, my Qais,
Says she, come to me,
Fear not death,
Your wish for immortality
Keeps us apart.
Contributor :
SUKRITA PAUL KUMAR. Poet and critic. Teaches English at a Delhi university college. Has published three collections of poems in English, Oscillations, Apurna and Folds of Silence. Her major publications include Narrating Partition, Conversations on Modernism, The New Story, Man, woman and Androgyny. Involved in the study of the theory and practice of literary translation. Ismat: Her Life, Her Times was published by Katha in 2000.
