Polar Poem by ayyappan moolesseril

When I scribble ‘death', you read it ‘love'.

Then, you put on airs unfamiliar to me
And I, a language you can't follow

You think that we are aboard the train of love.
I believe it is the rumble of death all around.

Death and desire embrace each other
In flight along trodden paths.

Sighs enthralled by hopes and
Assumptions bound for parallels
Are entwined like sooty smoke clefts
And flanked besides love and death.

You and I are aboard a single compartment-
I, on my way to death
And you to destinations of love.

I relish sunsets while
You admire sunrise.

We could easily guess that
Unless you read death and I read love from
Our script, we don't have a chance for relativity
Even in reflections.

Now we are two gypsy poets
In the stagnant middle
Between the beginning and the end of life
Retelling tales in translation.



(translation: fazal rahman)