2023-06-24 13:10:14
“What is poetry, then?” I don’t know any of that. But I hold on to it, like a sure handrail.
V Ravikumar on Szymborska’s Poems, and Four Poems
About death, without exaggeration/ Translation: Pratapan A
No goosebumps at all,
Can’t find a star,
Bridges cannot be built,
to weave, to mine, to cultivate,
to build a ship, to make a kayak,
Don’t know anything.
But about tomorrow
In our calculations,
The last word it will say,
All in a pooling manner.
to dig a grave,
to build a coffin,
To clean everything after work,
Even matters of one’s own profession
It cannot be done.
Involved only in killing
As a warning it gets the job done,
Without order or skill,
Each of us has it
Like being the first victim.
Yes, of course wins,
But look at its countless defeats,
Its blows fell,
which has to be repeated
Its efforts.
Even to swat a fly
Sometimes it has no thrust.
How many moths
Crawling through.
Tubers, pods, tubers,
Fish fins, trachea,
wedding decorations,
Winter fur coats, everything
In half-hearted efforts
Illustrations behind it.
Evil thoughts are not enough
With wars and coups
Even if we help, it does not reach.
Hearts beat in the eggs,
Cartilage grows,
In enthusiastic seeds
Crushing the first leaves,
Sometimes in the distance
And great trees.
He who says it is all powerful
For it is not so,
He himself is the living testimony.
Except that one time is immortal
A life without
To arrive at that one time
Death is always delayed.
At that invisible door
It keeps pushing,
just,
No way you have progressed
Unable to pull back.
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