The Incomplete Journey
K. Padmakumar *
The only poem I can never write is true.
-David Gascoigne
I simply relate an experience
Give an account of what I have actually seen
And tell a complete truth.
The starting point of my journey
Was not from the family home itself,
It was from the edge of the village
Where the country lane is just about to meet
The grazing ground, much frequented by me.
Late afternoon it was
The day I made my visit.
I saw the reddish sun
Above the western hills.
I saw everything –
All the things I had seen before.
A lovely moment it was, and it was the moment
The cultivators were returning after a day's work in the fields,
The domestic cattle trooping down
With cowhands following behind.
Today I did not come across
Any human being homeward bound
Nor seen even a bird
Flying swiftly past.
The world looked hollow
But for the hills and the trees,
And these were beautiful and were lively
In the light breeze,
And my mind was completely engaged.
I felt this was
Something very natural and normal
Something full and complete in itself
From which nothing could be taken out
And to which nothing could be taken in.
Where was I going?
Why was I going?
I did not know anything
Nor even thought about it.
The late afternoon magnified the beauty
Of all the things I had seen before
And today these were beautiful to the core.
Looking at things nearby enchanted me
Looking at things at a distance delighted me
On and on I went
Captivated by beauty all around.
Amid paddy fields
With thigh- high blades of rice
Tossing and turning and making a pattern of wavy lines
All of a sudden I saw
A narrow lane
Infinitely long.
On I went with light footsteps
And my movement was as light as a feather.
I was not sorry
Not even an ounce of sadness crossed my mind
Nothing I remembered
As if there was nothing to remember.
As I walked along
I saw a small footpath
Snaked its way
Towards the top of the hills.
I stopped for a moment at the foothill –
Glanced quickly at the top of the hills
And then like a small insect
I climbed up an unstoppable climb.
My organs –
These were not at all tired out.
At this moment, a voice
Of continuous low sound
Like a mosquito buzzing
Penetrated into, with unclear notes,
The very depth of my whole being.
Like the sound of the engine becoming louder
The moment the vehicle is nearer
So was I woken before one could blink
By the immediacy of tone of virgin words
Half- spoken and half-sung as in an incantation
Strangely invoking and elegiac in character.
When I grew up I realized
It was the rhythm of incantation of the faith healer
Calling my soul not to take its wing to eternity and come back.
Years later I thought
Had I looked back once
It would have been a complete journey
And would also have been the last journey
Of this birth of this life.
This I know for sure –
It is wrong to think
Death is the end,
Death is to take another road.
I live, honestly!
Unattached to space
Nor chained to time
But beyond space and time.
(Translated from his late father's Manipuri poem
Mapung Phakhidraba Khongchat by K. Radhakumar)
* Poem written by K. Padmakumar which was published at Hueiyen Lanpao (English Edition)
This poem was posted on September 17, 2014.
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