LITERARY CORNER

We

Jayant Pathak

With intense desire to see the sun

you keep awake all night

and then

there is a dawn without the sun!

All night

you keep squeezing the honeycomb of the sky

tolerating the sting of honeybees

and in the morning

you get to lick only the leaking bowl!

To get a bird

you throw away your only piece of cloth

and

you are embarrassed by the play of fate!

Carrying life on your shoulder

you walk slowly, carefully

and after all the walk

eventually you come

to that delicately supported

rugged rock of death!

The edges of our beliefs

keep pricking and poking

again and again

and we

bleed…bleed…

Translated from Gujarati by Varsha Das