Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
This stunned silence is not usual. It is
The harbinger of something momentous
About to happen. Within, hidden
Maneuvers are going on unseen.
This is not the silence of a forest.
Someone out there is watching us
From a spinney of stars. Listening.
A wide sky is all ears. Some quiet deed
Will betide. Orders have been given secretly.
Suddenly, a commotion: from the east
A head bedraggled in blood
Comes bursting out of the horizon
With a scream of light—unfurling
An aureole of triumph across the vista.
Running helter-skelter, the ominous
Murderous shadows of darkness
Surrender the fray and field for now
Rummaging for places to hide.
This is not some trifling blood-sodden tale
Taken from human histories
Of wars and carnage:
Enduring on from long before the earth was
Born, it is a part of the interstellar
Life cycle of creation that remains
Unbroken.
Excerpted from Witnesses of Remembrance: Selected Newer Poems, trans. Apurva Narain, Eka, Westland, 2021
KUNWAR NARAIN, TRANSLATED BY APURVA NARAIN