From The Verses On Poetry Poem by Dileep Jhaveri

I am amused:

Nobody has even the haziest memory

Of my father's Grandpa.

And yet his sword is still preserved.

Blunt.

And even now on its hilt

A delicate pattern of leaves and flowers

Is faintly visible.

There are stains

Hidden behind the tattered loyalty

Of the scabbard's silk and leather.

Are they marks of rust or blood?

Who Knows?



Anybody would be embarrassed of the rusty sword.

And who would not be ashamed of a bloody one!

I am abashed by the sword itself

That too still retained!



Those who will address my son as Grandpa

Perhaps will discover

A pen belonging to his father preserved still

When forest or ponds or squirrels or migratory birds

Must have become dried stains

On the rusted surface of barren paper.

Nobody would have even dimmest memory

That

Poems were written with that pen.

Nobody would ask what poetry is.



And yet, picking that pen

Someone would draw a petal of Peony flower

And write P for the first time

And proclaim perhaps

I am ashamed of my ancestors

?

Translated by The Poet