Photo courtesy of Chathuranga Pradeep
I don’t have any
kind of greedy idea
that you will get this letter.
And yet,
I cannot leave off from
writing this letter to you.
The mind
flutters like the wings of a butterfly.
Do you remember when we last met?
On that day,
you did not have the cloth shoulder bag
you usually carry
We had so much to discuss
And yet,
in that hurried moment,
We couldn’t.
You said that I had
lost a lot of weight
(well, that everyone says!)
But who can
say that to whom?
The situation is bad here.
The chances for our survival
have become thin.
At night,
almost
everyone dreams:
terrible nightmares
where helicopters
fly upside down
and tanks drive over children
Our children
make toy paper guns.
At times
when all the shops in town
are shuttered,
only the coffin maker
stays open in hope.
I don’t know,
if you knew already,
but how do I tell you of
the many dear friends
we have lost?
But you do know
that nature abhors a vacuum.
Until the end, then,
Let’s follow our path.
Translated from Tamil by Anushiya Ramaswamy
