Poems by K. Satchidanandan
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Three Grannies
Three dead grannies in a remote forest Are weaving me into a story. Like a cloth awaiting a hand to embroider Fowers on it, I feel three needles Pass through me, trembling. Into my infancy, they wove The fragrance of bamboo blooms and The moisture of a clod. Into my childhood, the colour of Bluebells and the clamour of the monsoon rains Into my adolescence, the liquid music of desire And the impulsiveness of a sensitive plant. Into my youth, love’s flag And poetry’s drum, into my middle years, The dust of journeys and the heat of verbs. Now they weave memories, flashing Like dew drops on the grass tip, A house that needs no more painting, The pale yellow dragonflies of death Fluttering around the paddy fields. Three grannies keep on weaving, And the forest dies with them Piece by piece. Four Ghosts In a house at Fort Kochi, Four ghosts, four shades, I am one, I am the other, The third and the fourth too, I. All like to move one another On the chess-field, checkmate The other, strike off, win. One writes, the other reads, One sleeps, the other keeps awake When one catches fever The other comes with a pill One is fair, the other fowl. One is wise, the other a fool, One old, the other young: Who among them am I? In a house at Fort Kochi … They slay one another, And yet stay on, the same man Occupies all the four rooms. One man is fire, the other water, One rain, another, sun, One looks in, the Other looks out, one a coward, The other brave, ready To break into anywhere. I cannot be a friend to all Nor can I afford to be their foe … In a house at Fort Kochi … |
K. Satchidanandan is the author of 24 collections of poetry, four books of travel, a full-length play and a collection of one-act plays, two books for children and several collections of critical essays, including five books in English on Indian literature besides several collections of world poetry in translation. He is a Fellow of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and has won 52 literary awards from different states and countries. His poems have been translated into 19 languages, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, English, Irish, French, German and Italian.
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