DARKNESS AT DAWN

PURIPANDA APPALASWAMY

Dropped from my stresses, jasmines all have faded;

My Lord has left my lap, my lap, O me;

Rousing memories of tortuous hell pain,

The morning breeze, scorpion-like, stings me.

My gray hair shakes the world with laughter

And tears mine, mock at me, at me, myself,

The mountain demons of early dawn, run

After me in hot pursuit, torch in hand,

To burn the borders of my sable sari.

Cobra-waves of the Eastern Main in fury foam

At mouths and dance in cruel, crooked swirl.

The sides of sable clouds shine like cut-throat swords;

And speed like pikes of length and strength

Bushes or caves or nether world

Where’s my asylum? Where’s my safety?

Would that the bonfire on the Eastern Hill.

The saffron flame-mark on the forehead

Of the threatening giantess of the sky

Perish in the gory western main,

Would that the demon had burnt to cinders

In my hot exhaled breath, black and deep!

Where’s my asylum? Where’s my safety?

–Translated from Telugu by Dr. G. Srirama Murty

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