I’m Completely Different

[A poem has the power of healing a wounded-heart. It can show a way through or it can give you a shield to hide behind. It can turn the light back on in a place you thought was permanently disconnected. It can be a talisman to be worn in the head for warding off miseries. Kuroda Saburo [1919-1980] is a Japanese poet, he writes often of matters relating to love & family. ‘I am completely different’ is one of his best poems- I even call it a modern mantra, for the act of reading it is somehow comforting. Saburo always sees roses in debris; hear dirge as a song from a Nightingale. He feels eruption of hope in the midst of devastation and destruction. It is one of my favorite poems- I read it again and again whenever I feel blue… whenever the course of life becomes uncharitable.]

 I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same tie as yesterday,

am as poor as yesterday,

as good for nothing as yesterday,

today

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same clothes,

am as dirty as yesterday,

living as clumsily as yesterday, nevertheless

today

I am completely different.

 Ah-

I patiently close my eyes

on all the grins and smirks

on all the twisted smiles and horse laughs

on all the shameful defeats and defaults-

and glimpse then, inside me

one beautiful white butterfly

fluttering towards tomorrow.

Image courtesy: Google                

For Whom Should I Cry Now?

“Alas that love, so gentle in his [Romeo’s] view 
should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.”- William Shakespeare

Back in time, when young was the moon 
speechless we stood in a train station. 
Holding hands, we’d wept for our failed- love. 
Pale went your face as you fought tears, 
concealing wounds in your heart. 

Shrieking horns came then a blue train and 
home it carried you… your marital home. 
There under new skies you’d become 
a wife, mom, and grandma. 
Stupefied I still watched the train 
running over my love heartlessly. 
The moving devil now looked red not blue, 
showing the color of my tears. 

Leafing thro my Memory Book, 
your pretty face I oft look. 
Can I ever forget your elegant eyes? 
that spoke volumes and volumes once. 
Seeing your bubbling dimples when you laughed 
rainbows bobbed up in my heart. 

All sweet kisses your rosy lips gave me then 
still remain moist in my mouth, tasting like nectar. 
The perfume and fragrance you’d wafted when hugged 
still remain spread in my body, making me ever balmy. 
My love! 
To keep your memory ever green in heart and soul 
I had to fight with Time, a heartless Monster. 

When waves of time brutally wrecked my life boat, 
I struggled like a fish in a hook. 
Void and emptiness grew thick in heart 
as I wished to see the face I’d lost to Time. 
Leaving me in a limbo you’ve gone 
to the wind to make a wind, 
to the moon to make her more shining, 
and 
to the grey sea to make it green. 

Shocked, I felt like falling into a cauldron 
when your demise I knew from a tabloid. 
I smothered my sobs and fell into my knees. 
But… but… 
Amidst sorrows, I felt a drizzle 
drenching my soul. 

For, in the ‘obit’ column of the paper 
I didn’t see an age-ravaged, time-eaten 
face of an ol’ lady.’ 
The photo therein was the one 
you gave me long back when 
we were in the spring of love 
breathing for each other and 
praying for each other. 

Now- 
Straddling relief and sorrow, asked my broken heart: 
“For whom should I cry now? 
You or your failed- love or your dead lover?