If writing a poem could bring you
Into existence, I'd write one now,
Filling the stanzas with more
Skin and tissue than a body needs,
Filling the lines with speech.
I'd even give you your mother's
Close-bitten nails and light-brown eyes,
For I think she had them. I saw her
Only once, through a train window,
In a yellow field. She was wearing
A pale-coloured dress. It was cold.
I think she wanted to say something.
[From: The Transfiguring Places]
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Who is this daughter, Mehrotra? Your or expected to be born? Did you think of as did Charles Lamb in Dream Children: A Reverie? Or, the small daughter in the field seemed to be your own? A beautiful poem indeed, but we have to find out if you have a daughter or not or when the poem was written, was it before the birth of your daughter or it not?