Startingpoint Poem by desamangalam ramakrishnan

While I read a book
or the book reading me
there lurked your face in every page
and so I forgot my hunger.

This library in my village
as if a vessel for my Odyssey,
I heard afar
the proclamation of a springtime.

In every birth
there may be a village and its library
In every death
there may be a boat and its redeemer,
In every resurrection I see
Dostoyevsky, Valmiki, Lava-Kusa
and the Brothers Karamasov.

In my younger days
sitting here
I could dream of white doves
breaking through the cross
and flying from east to west
and from west to east.

This Village library
my starting point
and leaning on this mile-stone
my evenings transformed to skylarks.

In those days
I used to see a huge cloud
travelling by measuring my shadow:
And riding on that cloud
I played archery
with my dream as bow
and stars as arrows.

Even if performed
in the stage of the sky
one has to get down to get the presents
And me with stretched out palms
alighted at the library's yard.

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