Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

NATURE’S FOUNTAINHEAD by Sukirtharani

(Translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström)

Say you bury me alive.
I will become a green grass-field
and lie outspread, a fertile land.

You may set me on fire;
I will become a flaming bird
and fly about in the wide, wide space.

You may wave a magic wand
and shut me up, a genie in a bottle;
I will vaporize as mercury
and stand upright towards the sky.

You may dissolve me into the wind
like water immersed into water;
from its every direction
I will emerge, like blown breath.

You may frame me, like a picture,
and hang me on your wall;
I will pour down, away past you,
like a river in sudden flood.

I myself will become
earth
fire
sky
wind
water.
The more you confine me, the more I will spill over,
Nature’s fountainhead.

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