Song For Girl In Checkered Shawl Poem by Raj Arumugam

gentle girl
in checkered shawl
in Safonkovo,
the artist's village

charming girl
and of delicate smile
in your simple rustic clothes
like any other girl everywhere
with her dreams, her loves
flowering in time, coming of age
with nature's rhythms

girl of desires and wishes
and warmth and good heart
anonymous, unknown
and growing and marrying and begetting
and loving and nurturing and passing
in time past, another age
another clime


and this your lovely smile
that reaches us from your village
this the beauty of you
O girl in checkered shawl
in Safonkovo
the artist's village

this look of you, Venetsianov
sends from the distant past -
this
I breathe in like
I breathe the fresh air
in an early Spring morning,
O darling girl of Safonkovo