JOSHUA’S ELEGY ON A GRAVEYARD
(English translation of Joshua’s Poem in Telugu)
Dr. C. Jacob
Though millions of years have rolled on,
No hapless soul in this graveyard asleep
Gets up, alas, from this grave alive:
How long does this motionless sleep prolong?
What mothers have sorrowed over their lost sons:
Drowned in tears, stones indeed have backed up here:
The sky is filled with darkest clouds,
Owls and devils are rambling free;
The ravens around are screaming wild,
My heart does shudder at the awful scene,
But not a trace of leaf is found stirring.
How much does pleasure playfully enjoy hers:
What noble poet’s mellifluous pen
Has in the embers been melted off here:
What royal seals of emperors great
Have come to a close and ended here:
What teen-aged wife’s glossy black-beads
Have merged in the river Ganges, here:
What skilful brush of a renowned painter
Has on the burning pyre perished here!
This is the theatrical stage
On which the Lord of Death,
Joining with demons,
Rings his anklet bells
And dances on:
This is the throne of ashes
From which does reign
The regent of death
With fierce looks.
Behold that flickering light over the shrubs
On the recent grave drowned in darkness deep
Looking like a glowworm; its flame is not dying,
Though oil exhausted: call we this a lamp?
No, it is the heart of a hapless mother
Who has laid it for her lost son there and gone.
The pens of poets, the dulcet throats of songsters
Must one day tread the threshold of graveyard:
Lo, how the mortal frames of Kalidas
And Bharavi of remote past have turned
Into minute particles by nature’s law
And mixed in the clay on a potter’s wheel:
Our hearts do melt if we begin to think:
What graces of tender cheeks and lovely lads
Have ended here and slept in those tiny tombs:
What mother’s womb alas with burning flames is alive?
What skills of learning yet to flourish on earth
Nipped in the bud, are still groaning?
For untouchability to perambulate here
This is no place, for it is the place
Wherein the cosmic game duality is held
And brought in together the tiger and the lamb
And lulled to rest and are comforted
The thought of oneness and justice prevails here.
That corpse rolling in tattered clothes,
Besides the marbled tomb of a man of riches untold,
Belongs perhaps to a poor man consumed by hunger,
Cried for food, sobbed, sighed and died:
But not a man is there to think of him,
The graveyard too cares not to cover the corpse.