K.Satchidanandan As I Have Understood Him, Come To Know Him Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Satchidanandan as a poet
Is a poet of Kerala,
Its history and movements,
Reeling under the loom
Of political ideologues and think-tanks,
The pressures of the communist regimes,
Where lies it banned
The freedom of the press,
The tongue under restraint,
Freedom of speech and expression censured,
Living under threat and pressure,
The proletariat the master

But how to do away with all that
Colour in all,
Red colour in all
History, language, culture, song, choreography,
Script, text and draft?
A poet he is both
A Gandhist with the Gandhians
But with a difference
Holding the socialist vision,
Contradicting the icon theory,
A communist with the communists
But like G.B.Shaw
In his anti-thesis.

A poet of Kerala he is a Kerala man,
A Malayalam speaking
Malyali poet
But an English language professor,
A world translator
With the interpreting wires
Into the ears
As for poetic judgements,
A traveller and a tourist
And a visitor
K.Satchidanandan.

If you have to understand poetry,
Go to the fields
And see the paddy ears
Hanging, glistening
Into the fields,
If you have poetry,
Write the poetry of
The golden wheat sheaves
Into the fields.

The stroke of the hammer at
The blacksmith's cottage,
The strikes of the coppersmith
Welding,
The goldsmith dreaming with
The artisans,
The gemologist going with the gems,
The embroiderer
Embroidering.