‘Were that we all had lived together’
Were that we all had lived together
under one roof
without separate kitchens—
grandfather, great aunt,
father, uncle, siblings—
and remained in
the same neighbourhood.
Grass lives next to grass,
mud next to mud,
and in the wind live
storms, hurricanes,
and scent-laden gusts.
Unbroken, without knots,
the earth’s wind is one
with our breathing.
_________________________
Vinod Kumar Shukla
(with ever thanks to
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
who sent the poem to me
from India this morning)
“College” was first published in English in Blue Is Like Blue (2019), a collection of Vinod Kumar Shukla’s stories translated by Mehrotra and Rai, by HarperCollins India.
