Memory Card

Before we were born
The mustard fields
HaDd run to seed
And gone dry

Leaving the green,
Leaves had changed nests
To the tawny

Rivers that wouldn’t even like
To reminisce about the bridges

The clefts,
Oceans perfected in flowers
Were called colours

The kisses,
The rain bestowed on wounds
The “Kunkumam”

All around is plunged in oblivion;
Father forget s his daughter;
The house, its country.
The flowers, the forest
The roots, the sky
Love, the green


2
In the spot of thunderbolt
You pointed at,
A slender leaf was seen
Painfully clambering up in the wind

In the place
Where you deceptively uttered
It’s the fire flame
There is now
The word–gone–dry dampness

Where we looked
We perceived
Neither the tumult
Nor the crimson sky

To what extent
Was the cleavage of the black sea
Between us?
As we woke up after a dip,
Words were
Seething new dresses.
We were granted
A boon of oblivion
Through Performance of penance.

We wrote on sea, drawing it
Fashioned the sky, though words
A single verdict was reached
“Moolyachuti”1

3
We wrote in recollection,
And the bow of the word broke off.
We who went to see the woods,
Were transformed to the forest leaves.
Those segregated words,
Without being dissociated
Are with us together

We clambered on–
Those that sang aloud
As emptiness
Others that moved to bloodshed and sacrifice
As vapour.
Forgetfulness does not torment us now
And so we are cautions.
An inch thick iron foil
Is always with us
To assemble all ingredients of memory
Like those old iron nails in the knapsack.

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