Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Granny Maria’s village home was an old poem.
It resembled-
A floating ship, a cloudy rock, or a mirror of red-ribbons
In the prep-school.
It was five-storied tall without any walls.
Its roofs were infinite surrogate seasons
Embroidered with songs on banana leaves.
Floors, upstairs and downstairs,
Were carnival tricks.
There were 55 windows;
Gossiping, giggling, brokering peace among unfaithful lovers.
At the doorway
Ageing gypsies on wooden toy-lions
Guarded all our possessions marked with ascetic asterisks.
***
Granny Maria’s parents-
Mr Nandy and Mrs Nandy
Were distant cousins of Zapatista.
They erred, slurred while selling lamps in the refugee camps.
Occasionally, they came to the village,
Burnt effigies of indigo planters and
Taught neighbours to cook octopus in creamy sauce.
People say
Everyone in the village loved Pinto beans and red paprika.
But Granny Maria grew up on
Pancakes, apple pies, and crunchy crackers.
After a shot of white rum punch
Granny sang,
“Picotante…paralysante…picotante…paralysante…”
We don’t remember
What those words meant,
But we know that she,
In her heat-proof pleated cotton skirt and blouse,
Often slept in the clay fireplace.
***
After the civil war,
When there was no grain in the house,
Nor black salt.
With an ivory hoof in her left toe
She climbed to the sky
On the pretext of worshipping a snake-armed God.
She unstitched the lining of the heavens
With her squeaking scissors, plucked sea-almonds,
Roasted them in the heat of lightening
And fed the daughters of unwed sparrows.
***
All we know —
Everyone in my village lived happily ever after.
You would never see her again
But visit Granny Maria ’s house in my village.
It is still an old poem.
← Ashwani Kumar