K Satchidanandan (India)

SPACES
 
My moon rises in a valley in Damascus,
shedding light on the Arabian Nights.
 
My sun sets over the Atlantic,
spreading darkness from Lithuania to Liberia
 
My stars illumine the Pacific ,
Turning each of her islands into gold.
 
My lexicon comes from all over the world
from Iran and China, Portugal and Rome,
from Netherlands and Arabia
The solid gravity of Sanskrit over
the liquid music of Tamil:
a Himalaya in the Mediterranean.
 
My bread comes from Vidarbha
where peasants commit suicide;
my water, from Ganga
where orphan corpses bob up and down
The song I sing is of the vanishing Nila river,
the death I die, of the pitch-black  Yamuna.
 
I sleep alone, remembering our Syrian driver
Khalid, of Aleppo. Is he alive still?
At times a homeless Kurd appears in a dream;
at times, a Rohingya refugee raises his roofless head.
 
I do not know Gikuyu,
I haven’t even been to Palestine.
 
I set fire to every proof of my having lived;
only one thought remained in that ash
on earth like a flightless bird.
It still lays eggs;
one day,  one of them may hatch
a blazing sun that brightens up my village too,
my memories may reappear as its black spots.
 
Only words fall on my begging bowl:
Kindness. Love. Sacrifice.
Words.
The Black Hole of words.