The Syntax of Time’s Wheel: Three Poems by Sunkara Gopal
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘From elsewhere, the wind breaks into a room, turns the pages, / Writes four sentences. / The song, somewhere born, dismantles the silence.’
- Sunkara Gopal / Translated from Telugu by Jyothsnaphanija
Drizzling Sorrow
I think of a tree now.
A tree, whose feet are tied to
a bird that went off in the morning.
This tree weeps for the bird, waits with its thousand-leafed eyes.
Can the bird be traced in this expansive land?
This pale bird sings a story.
Sometimes a story of some unknown sorrow.
Some other time
Story of desires.
And some times
About those clouds that refuse to share nourishment for the rice field.
About that abruptly-stopped spinning wheel
often remembering old cloth.
This bird builds a story like a nest
Where it fills the invisible gaps with tiny sticks from everywhere.
The tree listens to the cracked bird
Singing and weeping
Remembering the feet of forgotten people
Exhausted from walking
hours
of distances
just to fill a pot of water.
The witty bird sings a story of rich leaders
And unwealthy people.
About a fair,
About those wonders of a fair
While tracing the story of the morning light under the bards of incarceration,
It adjusts its feathery arrow.
This lonely tree holds its breath throughout the night in tears
The tears sprinkled, like fractured dots of darkness on the land.
This bird left the tree today as well.
No one knows if it will return.
When I think of that forsaken tree now, I get drenched
In the drizzling sorrow.
*
A Day
Something happens as usual in a day.
Do you want to know the syntax of time’s wheel?
A leaf withers.
grass swings.
Few birds lay eggs.
Few make children.
Walls get broken.
A tiny root of a banyan tree creeps.
A snake executes housewarming ceremonies on an anthill.
Flowers of the trees take their position in hair.
Several episodes of love performed.
Births of children.
Water, undefined in tears, washes the corpses.
Water gets evaporated.
Do you want to know what happens in the 24 hours of a day?
The sun breaks into a house and plays hide and seek with a baby of the house.
Hunger sees the world from the labour pains.
Wooden stove burns with the smell of food.
One falls in love.
One falls into the trap of illusion.
Dry lake gets disturbed.
Full-grown field sings a song.
The snail who doesn’t remember when it started its journey completes its voyage.
Fish get caught in the net.
The lamp weeps at fallen houseflies.
From elsewhere, the wind breaks into a room, turns the pages,
Writes four sentences.
The song, somewhere born, dismantles the silence.
*
Rented Home
I went to look for a rented home.
The previous tenant’s wife would have planted a tree,
Now it is blooming full with memories.
I just opened the door to go inside.
The doorway sings the sadness in the woman’s tunes.
The four rooms of the rented home are like four chambers of the heart.
The calendar is still carrying the previous month on the wall.
The fear the children felt, when their parents were quarreling, is hiding at one corner.
The picture of a ghost the children drew on the wall is pouring the same fear.
The broken bangles at the bits and spaces of the home are the unfulfilled dreams of owning a house.
An airless ball left behind by the children is still lifeless at home.
Life spills into drops, for five seconds each, from a tap they haven’t properly screwed.
That home would have been drenched in sadness.
Would have jumped with spirit.
It is still like a sea.
Looking for people to cross.
***
Sunkara Gopal is an award-winning Telugu poet. He is currently working as assistant professor of Telugu at DRG Government Degree College, Tadepalli Gudem, Andhra Pradesh. You can find him on Instagram: @sunkaragopalaiah.
Jyothsnaphanija is an Assistant Professor of English at ARSD College, University of Delhi, India. She authored the poetry collection Ceramic Evening (2016). She writes short stories, literary essays, and is interested in Translation Studies. She can be reached at jyothsnaphanija@gmail.com and on Instagram: @jyothsnaphanija
