i) The Forest Man
I stroke the trees that grow like hair
On the chest of the forest man.
And from some corner of the forest
From the half-eaten body of an animal
Abandoned by lions, there issues a stench
That spreads through the forest.
Intermingled with it is another sharp smell,
The sweat of the wood god.
Something is always happening in the forest.
The wild champa flowers, withers.
The clay becomes a mountain, the mountain becomes a cave,
The cave becomes the sky and as the sky presses down on it
A rabbit lifts the whole forest on its head.
The trees of the forest now look old.
But the hair on the chest of the man forest
Has not yet turned white.
On the heaps of yellow leaves
That have fallen in autumn
A white bird sits silently.
As long as it sits
The trees will not fly away elsewhere.
As they listen to the tales of the forest man
The trees are extending their roots deep into the ground.
There is another forest underground,
A forest of roots.
From these tangled roots
Issues another unknown species of tree.
It's not under the control of the forest man anymore, this forest.
ii) A Boat Loaded with Sand
I set it afloat
A boat loaded with sand.
Go, go drown on the sea-bed.
But totally unexpectedly
Like a mound of light from an alien planet
The boat flew up into the sky.
Look, now between the thick clusters of stars
It lies entrapped
In the light of countless stars
The boat seems to have lost its way.
There, stationary in the sky,
Is a cluster of stars like a picture
Of a boat collapsed amidst stars.
I had always said
there is no universe beyond this point.
iii) The skeleton of a whale
In the museum I saw the huge skeleton of a whale.
Seeing the dust covering the whale bones
I thought, if only this whole museum
Could turn into a vast, roaring ocean.
Water would flow into the hollows of the skeleton.
And music would arise from the sound of the water
Flowing between its empty ribs.
The great whale that swallowed whole ships in the ocean
Now so lifeless?
It's possible that one day
The ocean will once again sweep over the museum
And the whale comes alive again.
Its gigantic teeth will crush
The showcase glass into fragments.
This whale is not lifeless.
Look, even now the waves are crashing
Against the rocks,
The directions are loosing direction,
And from the horizon
Ships vanish.
iv) My Clothes and I
Crammed
Packed with stars
The moon circles round
In the empty sky
Flinging streaks of light.
The watchman of our society
Casts his torch-light around,
He knows my clothes drying on outside.
There's been no electricity since evening.
Between the glittering eyes of the cockroach
As it wanders round the house
I slip through, my body
Naked as the cockroach's eyes.
The candle is found
In a spot quite different
From where I had kept it ready to hand.
In the light of the candle
How innocent the design on my clothes!
When I got up this morning
Statuettes of wax were moving around
Wearing my garments.
The door-bell rang.
It was the dhobi with my ironed clothes.
He went off smiling a sly smile
At the statues of wax.
While this was happening
I was gladdened by the blue flame
Rising from the wick of my primus stove
Finely shaped and drenched in kerosene.
The knob of the primus is in my hand
And this blue heaven as well.
If the flame of the primus blazes through the house,
And all my clothes
And those statues of wax
Now so accustomed to the ways of my clothes
All burn I, ashes, wouldn't that be fun?
Those long-lived clothes won't burn so easily.
Finally, I call a woman who sells utensils
Give her my clothes
And buy utensils instead.
Now it seems that the soul of the clothes
Has entered into the utensils.
I rub and rub
The black soot
Plastered to the bottom of the tea kettle.
As I scrub away at the bottom of the kettle
It begins to shine like a mirror
And I can see
The all too familiar pattern on my clothes.
There they are drying up in the sky
On a clothes-line pegged
To the wind with nails
The clothes that I daily wear
In the golden light of the sun
Looking so splendid
They are heavenly my clothes
And even more divine
Is their boredom.
v) The Bazaar of Pots and Pans
I love to walk through the market at Mandvi
Where pots and pans are sold.
"On the day of Chiranjivi Manisha's birth"
These are the words that my mother
Got marked on the utensils she had bought here.
Years passed.
My skin changed.
And those utensils too, like members of the family
Used, worn,
Became more and more themselves.
When I visit the market with my pots and pans
To get the cracks soldered,
With them are soldered
My scattered years.
I return with a sense of contentment.
In my ears the sound of metal beaten
As the dents are hammered back into shape.
I've no idea
Where my pots and pans came from,
The shop, the shopkeeper,
But as I pass silently
Through the long familiar noises of the market
I constantly feel
That they and I are undying.
New couples keep coming here,
They choose a new name for me,
Have it marked on their pots and pans,
Carry me home with them.
I live the life of those pots and pans.
Or else, I sit
In the market at Mandvi
On the steps of different shops where utensils are sold.
I feel satiated
With a thali loaded with thirty-two dishes.
I feel bewildered
By an empty bowl
Pots and pans, empty and full,
Gaze at me like philosophers,
When suddenly
A utensil falls from the rack
And the noise resounds through the house.
I get so disturbed,
As if someone is coming to take my life.
There is just the span of my hand between
Utensils and life.
And before I can determine
Where the span begins and ends
Like the long narrow lanes of the market,
The joints on my fingers
Start counting something
In the storehouse of Time.
Never are they completely silent
The noises of this market of pots and pans.
When the market closes
Behind locked doors
New utensils glitter
And new lives come into being
Alive and vocal in that glitter
Locked with thalis, bowls, glasses
And as lives grow stale,
It is I who live them,
Since yesterday,
Since the day before,
Since that day.
vi) Dialogue
Picking up the coloured pieces
Of a broken glass bottle
Blood spurted out in my eyes.
Mending torn clothes
My eyes wore out.
Extending my gaze in the mist
My eyes filled with water. Not spotting you one evening
On the steps leading to your home
My eyes slid and fell down.
Sometimes awaiting you
My eyes were wide open even when asleep.
We wandered in unknown regions
How would my eyes distinguish dream from reality?
It seems
The pupils of my eyes made a long journey
And are back now safe in their place
Calm has now settled on my eyes.
I can see everything clearly now, near and far.
Tell me how shall I resume
The interrupted dialogue?
These eyes that have returned after rebounding against snowy mountains
Can now rest
Within the snow-white walls of your home.
vii) Grief
The clouds were the same
The trees the same,
In the same way the yellow flowers of the laburnum
Were falling on the street.
But today there is sadness in the evening.
For no reason I remember
Those sheep that died
Months ago, crossing the village street
And the shepherd-woman, Aaima
Weeping for her precious wealth, her flock.
The outskirts of the village still sorrow for those sheep
That sadness envelopes me too.
I want to be drawn out of myself
By some unnatural rush of joy.
But again and again I remember,
The soft feel of their wool.
That day I had seen the tarred road
Stained with the blood of the sheep.
The rain washed off the stains.
Many seasons have passed since then.
Still in this town I seek
A fleshy touch.
The evening becomes more and more indifferent.
viii) The Unreal Tree
I tell you, it's this tree that's the Bodhi tree.
That same tree is the Kadamb, the same as the Ashok.
If you don't believe me, then where will you search,
For Buddha, for Krishna, for Sita?
All of us need
A tree that lacks reality.
All we have of life is what we get
From living the essence of a tree without roots.
I begin to write a description of the tree
But just then
its branches and twigs grip round my hand.
I can't fill the space
In the words and in the gaps between the words.
Now I am bewildered.
I must write down whatever
Appears before my eyes.
A tree imagined long ago spreads before me.
It enters my house through the windows.
My dwelling-place is in that tree.
And the tree lives
In the space between the words.
In search of the roots of that tree,
He climbs and climbs
Below a giant
Gashes into the tree with his axe.
I count the bodies of dead princes.
I dwell in that tree that spans the skies
And the tree survives
In my thirst for life.
The word of that tree never catches fire
No flower or fruit grows there,
Yet it nourishes me, that tree.
In the shade of images it lays me to sleep
Within the boundaries of its branches large and small
It keeps me alive,
I am free now
to write nothing at all.
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