Run Among The Rain Poem by Bankim Let

Peacocks could,
in the forest
or
in the zoos,
but I
couldn't dance
when
the cloud
burst
on my head.

The sky was
my only umbrella
torn
like my parents'
skin
with the scalpels
of the sun
and cold wind,
in the cornfield.

My stomach is
the bladder of
a football
left unpumped
on the litter
in one corner
of the earth.




My grandma
had some crabs—
in her windpipe—
drilling
all the while.
We could see
the moon
through her leaks.
The moon was all red,
not of a silver.
We needed
gold coins
to paste over her leaks,
but we had
only tears
to roll them round
like handmade bread.


My father
, at last,
managed
some holy basil leaves
and two dead copper coins
to shut her eyes.
My grandma
never knew
which king
it was
and what sprigs
they were
in the copper coins,
not even that
that the crabs
wouldn't gnaw her
afterwards.
Fire had eaten the them out as well.



Listen Granny, all of them!
Yes, the […]ants!

Peacocks
danced
that monsoon.

If only I were in the zoos!
I was
on the street

running
running
under the cloudburst.
A flash of lighting.
A flesh of lighting.
No umbrella,
no raincoat,
but a carry bag
that swallowed
half my head
to save me
from the rain
pelting down arrows.
Bathed all over
in blood
that had no colour at all.



Oh yes, it was beautiful!
Trees were Mozarts
that were playing sonatas
on the piano;
lotus-ponds were dreaming;
lanes burbling;
the wind was tipsy
with the fragrance
of a sylph
I met with
in a bus plying through
a meadow.
Lovely it was!
But I was not
by the window—
I was in the street,
unlike a dog sleeping in the haystack,
running
running
running
home
among the rain


and my mother was waiting
at the gate of a mud-hut
with a burning lantern.
The flame was twice as green as a wheat-leaf

"This is how the devils kill my boy! ", said she.
I said, "But we'll reap good crops this year, ma.
Let's store the drops
in the bucket
Of our land, shall we? "

"yes, but come eat something
You're hungry, love! " said she.



She flicked the broken skies off my hair
And I
her tears
off her eyelashes.

**