K Satchidanandan
THE GIRL ON THE SEVENTEENTH FLOOR
I stay on the seventeenth floor.
The moon can see my solitude.
But I cannot touch her sky.
I can see the sea below.
Inside it too there is a sky.
Behind me is a sea of slums.
There is no sky there.
My violin resounds on both sides.
My weeping too.-
Both speak the same tongue.
There are no flowers anywhere.
The painted city stretches in front of me
Waiting for her night-visitors.
2
I can now see a desert growing
At a distance.
It was all green, with
A lake at the centre
Full of water-lilies.
It was in front of our eyes
That the desert was born,
And the sand from the dried-up lake
Came ashore.
It ate up all green like a pre-historic beast.
Only the skeletons of plants
And trees were left on the sand.
3
One day this sea too will
Turn into desert.
I can see it coming up with the wind
To take over my seventeenth floor.
And devouring the whole city.
Then I will turn into a cactus.
A flower, reluctant, will bloom on me.
Around it there will appear
Honeybees, bears,
Green-hued humans
Under green stars.