VAIDHEESWARAN'S POEMS IN ENGLISH
[from Muse India]
S. Vaidheeswaran, born 1935,
belongs to the older generation of poets who started writing in the 60s. A
poet, stage artist and musicologist, his first book of poems Udhaya
Nizhal (The Shadow of Dawn) was published in 1970. His second collection,Nagarach-Chuvargal
(City-Walls) was published in 1994. His third book, a short-story collection
titled Kaal Mulaitha Manam (The Heart With Feet) was also
published in the same year. A selection of his poems translated into English as
published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta
A self-taught artist, his
paintings and drawings were exhibited in the Gujarat Lalit
Kala Academy
He can be reached at his
e- mail:<="">vydheesw@gmail.com<="">
Once in a while
I don’t regret
To be of no use
To this world
For a few seconds.
The heart stands in penance
Longing to lie awake
Between life and death
In the light sans history
Discarding for a moment
The life
That jumps on my back
And rides me incessantly.
Verse I
Whether you like it or not
The sun shines
One cannot stop the rain
From pouring down
We cannot command
The whirlwind
To stop
Saying
“ Ok, enough., not anymore”
Only after falling down
In a swirling flood
The waters turn sober
Into a river.
And so are these poems
It seems,
The mysterious outcome
Of some inner stubbornness.
Verse II
The mind that has perceived the leaf
Before the world
Invented language
In what wavelength or tongue
Would it have mused over it?
It is impossible to know.
In my mind what covers
And shrouds verse
With numerous tongues
Every day,
Will there appear
A way to pluck and bring that
Tongueless leaf
Within the lapse of my time?
The Fragrance of Rain
Whichever way I walk
This fragrance that
Comes with me, circling the nose
As if flowers are tied round the face,
What is it?
As sandalpaste applied
On the body of a breeze
By hands invisible,
What is this floating scent?
Has love become the very air
With the world getting drenched
After the night’s downpour?
The flowers that look
From above the bunches
Like hue-filled eyes
Hide the sky’s blue hither and thither
Spreading a red-yellow shamiana.
On the leaf-tips
Are the rain-drop semens
Yet unshed.
Inside the sultry flower bushes
Are the wing-strains of the flies…
It’s their impatient age
Overtaking me to inhale…
The floating silver spread
Of the angling sun-kite
All over the space:
On the branch, creeper
On the shade close to the Spring.
Spreading on all sides,
The earth smells sweet
Without my effort
The soft-voice of the
Silence-mixed drizzle.
Behind the cover of the leaf appears
A semblance
In the manner of God.
This is soul-filling rain.
Yet the memory of the
Fragrance of rain
Doesn’t stay long enough
In me
Who trudges a humdrum life.
From rain to rain
Somehow curiously
The heart changes!
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