A Poem for a Poet

 

She is a poet.

So, do not look for her in her poems.

She won’t be there.

Rather, you will be there, I’ll be

and many others like us.

Leaving herself back in her room,

she comes out into poems – in the forms

of you people and many ‘I’s.

 

She doesn’t spread her wounds

out in the sun of poem

nor flashes her delight on her teeth

as an ad of a certain toothpaste.

Rather from an edge of her wound

she draws in poem the map of a village

which is just devastated in a riot.

 

Incarnated in words,

poet cannot remain herself in poem.

In it, in fact, stands an elephant

which the blinds touch and they see

their individual beliefs in it.

 

Poet is always at the edge

of the main road of her poem.

 

Poet’s breathing

and poem’s rhythm

are two different things…

_______________________    

- Manprasad Subba