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Gieve Patel
ON KILLING A TREE
It takes much time to kill a tree, Not a simple jab of the knife Will do it. It has grown Slowly consuming the earth, Rising out of it, feeding Upon its crust, absorbing Years of sunlight, air, water, And out of its leperous hide Sprouting leaves.
So hack and chop But this alone wont do it. Not so much pain will do it. The bleeding bark will heal And from close to the ground Will rise curled green twigs, Miniature boughs Which if unchecked will expand again To former size.
No, The root is to be pulled out -- Out of the anchoring earth; It is to be roped, tied, And pulled out -- snapped out Or pulled out entirely, Out from the earth-cave, And the strength of the tree exposed, The source, white and wet, The most sensitive, hidden For years inside the earth.
Then the matter Of scorching and choking In sun and air, Browning, hardening, Twisting, withering,
And then it is done.
(From POEMS, published by Nissim Ezekiel, Bombay 1966)
PUBLIC HOSPITAL
How soon I've acquired it all! It would seem an age of hesitant gestures Awaited only this sententious month. Autocratic poise comes natural now: Voice sharp, glance impatient, A busy man's look of harried preoccupation -- Not embarrassed to appear so. My fingers deft to manoeuvre bodies, Pull down clothing, strip the soul. Give sorrow ear upto a point, Then snub it shut. Separate essential from suspect tales. Weed out malingerers, accept With patronage a steady stream Of the underfed, pack flesh in them, Then pack them away.
Almost, I tell myself, I embrace the people: Revel in variety of eye, colour, cheek, bone; Unwelcome guest, I may visit bodies, Touch close, cure, throw overboard Necessities of distance, plunge, Splice, violate,
With needle, knife, and tongue, Wreck all my bonds in them.
At end of day, From under the flagpole, Watch the city streaming By the side of my hands.
(From HOW DO YOU WITHSTAND, BODY published by Clearing House, Bombay, 1976)
SQUIRRELS IN WASHINGTON
Squirrels in Washington come Galloping at you in fours, then brake To halt a few feet away And beg on hindquarters. No one stones them, And their fear is diminished. They do halt, even so, Some feet away, those few feet The object of my wonder. Do I Emit currents At closer quarters? Are those The few feet I would keep From a tame tiger? Is there A hierarchy, then, of distances, That must be observed, And non-observance would at once Agglutinate all of Nature Into a messy, inextricable mass? Ah Daphne! Passing From woman to foliage did she for a moment Sense all vegetable sap as current Of her own bloodstream, the green Flooding into the red? And when She achieved her final arboreal being, Shed dewy tears each dawn For that lost fleeting moment, That hint at freedom, In transit, between cage and cage?
(From MIRRORED, MIRRORING published by Oxford University Press, Madras, 1991) |