Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
Twenty four years in different European cities and he had not lost
His surprise at how birds stopped at the threshold
Of their houses. Never
Flying into rooms, to be decapitated by fan-blades or carefully
Herded through open windows to another life, never
Building on the lampshade
Or on some forgotten, cool corner-beam where droppings and straw
Would be tolerated until the fateful day hatched
And the world was fragile
Shell, feathers, a conspiratorial rustle of wings above and of
An intrigued girl below. Even the birds in their neat towns
Knew their place. They
Did not intrude into private spheres, demanding to be overlooked
Or worshipped. They did not consider houses simply
Exotic trees or hollowed
Hills. Not being particularly learned he did not know the thread
Of fear that knots the wild to the willed; not
Being well-read he
Did not remember the history behind their old and geometrical
Gardens, could not recall a time when the English
Parliament had killed a bill,
Shocked by a jackdaw’s flight across the room. He simply marked
The absence of uncaged birds in their homes. He thought
It was strange.
(First appeared in Where Parallel Lines Meet, Penguin, Delhi, 2000)
Because the east wind bears the semen smell of rain,
A warm smell like that of shawls worn by young women
Over a long journey of sea, plain and mountains,
The peacock spreads the Japanese fan of its tail and dances,
And dances until it catches sight of its scaled and ugly feet.
Because the koel cannot raise its own chicks --
Nature’s fickle mother who leaves her children on doorsteps
In the thick of nights, wrapped in controversy and storm --
Because the koel will remain eternally young, untied,
It fills the long and empty afternoons with sad and sweet songs.
Because the rare Surkhaab loves but once, marries for life,
The survivor circles the spot of its partner’s death uttering cries,
Until, shot by kind hunters or emaciated by hunger and loss,
It falls to the ground, moulting feathers, searching for death.
O child, my nurse had said, may you never see a Surkhaab die.
(First appeared in Where Parallel Lines Meet, Penguin, Delhi, 2000)
Listen to the song of the reed flute:
It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
Banks of the pond,
It is joined to sorrow and joy
By a slender sound.
Who, asked Rumi, can understand
The reed’s longing to return?
Let its raw lips rest then;
Let all words be brief then.
And I, O Believers, cried Rumi
(Having lost the man he loved),
I who am not of the East
Nor of the West, un-Christian,
Not Muslim or Jew, neither
Born of Adam nor Eve,
What can I love but the world itself,
What can I kiss but flesh?
Let my raw lips rest then.
Let all words be brief.
(First appeared inWhere Parallel Lines Meet, Penguin, Delhi, 2000)