Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










ON THE DEATH OF POET MUKTIBODH by Kunwar Narain, translated by Apurva Narain

The place where he sat down tired
was not the first nor the last
neither down nor up
not here nor there…
 
At times—triumph feels a step away from him.
At times—water around his feet holds him.
 
Maybe one should bid him farewell—
he who neither moves nor stirs, like the Buddha
in contemplation. He is perhaps
an exception, as he is exceptional.
 
Living thus is no less a way of living
whereas he could have retreated from anywhere,
from the pinnacle to the quotidian,
from the web of meaning behind words
to only their utterance.
 
On the path to realisation
when the daily world recedes 
and a person moves ahead, 
how strangely one has to part
from one’s own self.


Excerpted from Witnesses of Remembrance: Selected Newer Poems, trans. Apurva Narain, Eka, Westland, 2021


KUNWAR NARAIN, TRANSLATED BY APURVA NARAIN