ANDREW SCHELLING, LINGUISTICS ~

 

Linguistics

Into the language we come

into the world

to depart by the same path we

arrived

the most hidden gulches hold petroglyphs

caves unvisited thirty thousand years contain ideograms

the tundra's littered with

calendar bones

a rustle, a swift breath of dialect

larynx, nostril & lip

certain archaic forms change hardly at all

though tools and food get reshaped

The word Ma

the number three

and for some hidden reason obscure to

linguistics

the term for

ashes

__________________

Andrew Schelling

Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers

Empty Bowl 2024

VINOD KUMAR SHUKLA ~

 

A city person,

I was strangely disoriented

in the midst of nature.

In the bus queue

it looked as though

a roadside tree

had come and joined in too.

I was right behind it,

the last in line.

Now I'm an educated man.

When the bus arrived

I waited for the tree to get on first

when it struck me that trees

do not board buses.

And I who am a city dweller,

was separated from nature

in such a way that leaving the tree behind

I took my seat on the bus.

Once seated, my only wish

was to see trees on either side of the road

all the way back.

In my room I've hung a picture

of a whole forest.  

                                   (1976)

A dry river

was dry again the following year.

Deep below,

it would've been drier.

Below dry rivers

are channels of more dry rivers.

In a village

along one such river

its oldest man,

the last one alive,

will eventually find

buried in the sediment

a transparent rock

in which are fossils

of river vegetation,

river fish,

organisms, and snails,

and also locked inside,

one drop of water

millions of years old.

Preserved in the soul of the oldest man

is a single seed of rice.

I'm at the place

where it was decided I'll be

and from where I've always

been observing

those who go by.

This is where we'll gather,

though come to think of it

we could've gathered

at any place and there's no place

where we couldn't have gathered.

No matter where we meet,

we invariably meet at the place

meant for gathering.

With birth is born its twin, death —

it's a double birth.

Wherever I go, I carry this inborn death with me.

I'll save it

for as long as I live.

But after death, somewhere in the piggy bank,

you'll find that life's been saved.

I walk around as though I were the treasurer of piggy banks,

even of their piggy banks.

The Chhattisgarh to Bilaspur

on which I was traveling

would stop unwontedly.

Suddenly, at Gondia,

everyone disembarked

and rushed towards the Calcutta train

that had arrived.

Getting off, a passenger,

he was older than me, said,

You better get off too,

or you'll be waiting until your next life

for this one to reach its destination.

In no great hurry,

I was happy to be sitting where I was,

I was only going up to Rajnandgaon,

a few stations away,

where I was born.

_________________________

Vinod Kumar Shukla

Treasurer of Piggy Banks

translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

Circumference Books, 2024

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA ~

A Hindu Panegyrist Remembers
Sultan Mahmud


The wasting disease was bad enough,

Then he started losing his mind.

Visiting the treasury the week he died,

His jewels on display, he broke down

And wept like a child. Newcomers

Won't believe it, but Ghazna used to be

A miserable little place, known only for

The sweetness of its melons, before he

Changed its face, gave it a skyline

To match Baghdad's. He also changed our lives.

Each year before the onset of winter

He'd set off on his Indian campaign,

And four months later, when he returned

In the spring, the camel trains carrying

The spoils of war took a day and a night

To go past my door. We sang his praises,

He didn't stint on the reward; gold mostly,

But sometimes a string of pearls

Or a silk robe, like the one I'm wearing.






Ear-Cleaning Man


Unlike the carder

And the caner,

The ear-cleaning man

Has no street cry.

To find him you

Only have to look

And he'll be there,

Sitting beside you

On upright crate

Or low wall, probing

Your waxy ear,

First one, then the other,

For you to hear

Your inner voice

The better with,

Before vanishing

As suddenly

As he'd appeared,

The hands free,

A small bag tucked

Under his arm,

And two needles

In his headband,

Like a pair of feelers.






Worker Ant


The few things it needs lie within

Walking distance: an insect wing,

A grain of sugar. Sometimes it takes

A Grand Tour of roadside litter,

Or goes hiking alone in shingle

Mountains, past thumbnail lakes.

Its happiest moments are at a jungle

Boot camp, crawling on twigs,

Struggling in a bog-hole under

The garden tap, pushing a grass blade

Ten times its size towards a towering

Clod of earth in the flowerbed.

I saw the grass move before I saw

Its mover, hiding in plain sight.

________________________
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
New York Review Books
2020

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA (2) ~

R E A D      M O R E