thecreativespace
I had sown a few words,
on the land of my ancestors
which they kept sparging with their
blood, which you saw derogatorily
Those words uncurled
like paddy
blossomed, smiled
stood up strongly
as if they were the tip of a thorn
as if they were the edge of a knife
they were the wounds of love
They were voiceless, but
clanked like swords
They wore smiles
but scared the vanguards
I had sown a few words
You were afraid of words
especially of thoroughly truthful words
of words that scattered like germs
in the damp ground of the prison
You chained my aged body
but my words skyrocketed
now my words, free of chains,
will flitter in the sky
will make you cognizant of pain
that occurs in any corner of the world
Now whom shall I name
in this Will of words
Who should carry the basket of the world's pain
My Will
is waiting
for you, him, her
the Will of a revolutionary
(Rati Saxena : She is a poet, editor, translator, and Vedic scholar born in Udaipur, India and is the author of 11 collections of poetry written in Hindi and English; a travelogue, Cheenti ke par; a memoire, Everything is Past Tense; and a critical piece on the famous Malayalam poet Balamaniyamma’s work. Her research on the Atharvaveda has been published as “The Seeds of the Mind,” a fresh Approach to the Study of Atharvaveda, under the fellowship of the Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts. Saxena’s work appears in translation in Malayalam, Irish, Italian, and English, and she has been invited for poetry readings at festivals around the world, including PoesiaPresente (Monza, Italy), Struga Poetry Evening (Macedonia), twice at the prestigious poetry festival in Medellin (Colombia), and International House of Stavanger (Norway). Saxena also works as poetry festival director and editor (Kritya). She was awarded the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation for the Year 2000).