Few Jottings About Books From An Autobiography Of A Writer Poem by PRAFULL SHILEDAR

1.
Books come looking for me
They are longing
To meet me

With the longing for an old friend
They look for me
They catch me in a moment
And stand quietly before me

They wait for me
To be read
They are in no rush to be read

Sometimes getting restless
I look at them
And that is enough for them

The moment I hold them
Their hearts gleam
And so do the eyes

While getting read
They hold their breath
Don't allow to disturb
my concentration

Even when left half-read
They don't get sad
They keep waiting
To be picked up again

After finishing reading them
Books get tired
Getting shut
They think how they
Have affected me

2.
Books go around in the world
Changing language
Like changing clothes

They get words tattooed
All over the body
from different languages

Crossing all borders
They spread distant
Easily like waft of wind

3.
Books have forms
That can be felt
Even when they are touched
With closed eyes

There is fragrance wafting
Before the arrival of books

Books come holding
masks of cover before eyes

They keep doors of
every page open

Books can be entered
From anywhere

4.
A new book fallen in hands
For the first time
gets tame
Sometime later
And changing hands
Wears out
Few beginning pages
before the text
disappear first and then
last pages come loose

at last that book
is no more seen
but it won't go away from the mind
even after buying a new copy

books grow old
their pages get loose
from their stalk
they need to be lifted
carefully and kept
they need to be looked after
like an old father

5.
You should wish for a book
With closed eyes

After opening the eyes
The same book should
Be there before your eyes

This happens many times
These days
But first the book not only
becomes rare
but becomes dear
like a precious thing

Four centuries ago
For a book of homilies
Two hundred goats
And two sacks full of grain
Had to be given

Maintaining a book
Was not the job
Of any Tom Dick and Harry

There books were with
a general, an officer, an aristocrat,
in hermitages and schools

Whereas they sit here
In a firm position
With a knot to the pigtail

If the blame came to them
They demanded
The snapped thumb
# # #
(5 out of 20 poems from a poetry series)
(Translation from original Marathi poem by Dr. Santosh Bhoomkar)