Me, An Old Book Seller Poem by rama teertha

I am an old books seller
What can I say if you ask me what do I want
All these books are mine yet not mine
I am there in all these books,
And the books are in me

What is the great difference
Between an old books seller and a cobbler
Mending old shoes

Each need a morsel of rice
And a verdant sky on the eyes and eyelids.

Whatever town, whichever center
Job is the same, the waiting too,

On the both sides of the road
This side me, and on the other, he
For sure I know all the books by name, writer-wise
Time of writing and the price, all quite familiar

For more than five decades
I am observing the masses, and the world from
This road side view,
What is so great bout the books,
All are only what has been said by us –
Who had brought here this hydrous drop –

+++

This book –
An old hag breaking into middle the firewood twigs
Basing the same on her weary thigh, tying and carrying on her head,

That book –
A hero fallen in a battle of fists

The worn out soles, poke market feet
Shoes without feet, the strap torn out,
The thumb ring given away,
His one glance is enough to ascertain
Which fits whom
Eyes closed and a brief search
Brings out the book like shoe

+++


In this late night just for two words,
For a pair of foot wear
For cover less, two books
by the writers unknown

+++

somewhere there beyond in the thick of forest
to those who have fallen what name there could be?

Forgetting real names long since,
They live incognito, anonymous, silent and fearless
And move on –
They are the books with out covers
The whole book is spine torn, pages strewn,
Poems one or two just remain
Two words just agleam
Like the water flowing on the rock

That’s what they are.

+++

In this late night,
These two sentences are a pair of foot wear and
the eyes of the mother domestic feline
Carrying the kitten by their neck, searching for a safe place to stash them

Half a century since I am at this old books trade
And for another half century since mending the old shoes
I am an old books seller and a mender of old shoes.



Original in Telugu: K.Siva Reddy

Translation into English: Rama Teertha