Father, Mother, And My Poems Poem by Ravikumar C.P.

Kannada poem: Basavaraj Vakkunda (1983)
Translation: C.P. Ravikumar (1990)


When I was a little boy
my father washed me every morning
in the open ground outside our home.
I would watch his ribs
go up and down, up and down,
as he vigorously rubbed my back;
I even counted the ribs in his cage.
Later, when I began to see
the map of India in them,
I began to write poetry.

In his wrinkled face
I saw black shadows
of cranes, pecking at him,
and my eyes turned red.
In his grey hair
I saw depressions left by time,
and in these depressions
were tears shed by mother.

In my mother's rags
I found the empty dreams of this land.
In her half loaf
I saw sixty crore hungry faces.
That is why:
when I write poems,
I feel guilty of copying
my father's wrinkles,
my mother's tears.