A Place Poem by shirish kumar mourya

There is a place on this earth
that I remember
without putting it in the bounds of
latitudes and longitudes

Why do places exist in our lives?
Is their existence so essential?

Can we not live on this earth
without settling down in those places?
Just like love
are places a compulsion of our being?

Whatever it is but they are there
and they will exist even if we don’t set them up
Just like love that will be somewhere in our lives
even if it is not in our practice

Among the many places in my life
it is just for this place
that I think this way

I should have reached there many years ago
So many years ago
that I could see it being made

I should have left that place many years ago
So many years ago
that I could have escaped
seeing it being ruined

But nothing like that happened
and now I just remember it

At times
I remember it
like a drunk man fallen on the ground
and at other times
I remember it
like the benevolence of a person
who picks up the fallen
 

(Translated from the Hindi by Bharatbhooshan Tiwari.)