Copihue Poetry

I set out for home during holidays
I set out for my home, my father’s home

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I set out as much, as the home was mine
Once a year the home was my home
A room in the house
a table in the room
the light scattering off the table
the darkness pressed down under the table was mine

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In the holidays the house had the time to take me in
And I had the time to let it take me
The house in which I wasn’t born,
did not grow up
was trying hard to be born,
to grow in me.

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An aroma I liked was wafting from the house—
Postovada that I like must have been made
Fond talk will ensue
City boy in the village, wearing new clothes
Here I will be Raja Babu
I will search for the big aspects of small things
I will chat up children
Everybody will like me . . .

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The road leading out of the house was my shadow

Calm, cool, dark, contorted
On the way, there were many potholes
Caught in the tangles of the everyday,
some I hadn’t known, some I had forgotten
that my holes had muck and not water

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Walking on my shadow,
knocking the door of my house, I was thinking—
if an unknown person opened the door, what would I say?

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My house
was entering
me.

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(October 2013, Chakuliya)