Season of Love on Earth

© 2005, Udaya Narayana Singh
From: Madhyampurush Ekvachan
Publisher: Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2005
ISBN: 8181834625

There’s a season of love on earth
made specially for you and me:
one which begins
when raindrops dry on rooftops.
I cast a net
to spellbind words –
wild words that scamper
like children in the neighbourhood,
and, in the end,
yield to the invoking poet.
I return to the riverbank;
my morning chant
turns water into sky,
plays on its pain and poise, and
flags off a rare pilgrimage.

In this parched land,
I am the rain god
who makes the sky weep
with the century’s most sordid tales
where ghosts wield wands and dance,
princes fly balloons of classless dreams,
and the hapless live with
the din that drowns their voices.

Listen to my tearful tales, Sky,
and roar; I need
the sound of thunder
to believe that
the monsoon has arrived.

I long to touch her
with my loving brows
moistened by raindrops,
so that I can read my words on her,
ask for her hand, and
remind her of the promises
she had made the last season!

© Translation: 2006, Udaya Narayana Singh with Rizio Yohannan Raj
From: Second Person Singular