Monday, May 17, 2010

SNAKE OR KOEL

Walking in the
afternoon
I saw a death,Koel chick
caught in a throat.

The sunlight
stopped me
from knowing
whose death it was.

A death so minute
and formless, you
couldn't tell what it was:
a Zen Budhist poem
being sheared
in Japan or an artist
drawing a snird.

Everything drifted, piled
over by leaves
There was no tree, but it
rained leaves
So much so that you
couldn't tel
lwhere it happened.

My children of ninth
generation
says
I'm still walking in the
garden.

They too are walking
as the coiled bone-
crossword
of a snake and Koel
shines in the path.

And the sunlight
never allowed
me to know
whose death it was.

Note: snake+bird = snird

(translated from malayalam by binu karunakaran)

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