I did Not Take Proper Leave of You… Bojja Tarakam, Telugu Poet
I am sorry
I did not take proper leave
When we parted…
I could not speak out my mind
when the police arrested me.
You stood awestruck
with tears swelling in your eyes.
Poor me! These cuffed -hands
were helpless to dry your tears.
Ringing the ‘long-bell’ to silence
marched … the police boots.
I could not tell you
about the umpteen thoughts that swelled up in my mind
like a billowing ocean under a tempest.
The beating of the heart
failed to break the pervading silence frozen.
Then…
I could not tell you
that whatever I might have said, or,
how much ever I had had said…
my words would just make some hollow sounds
bereft of any worthwhile meaning.
Dear
I saw
lives bare, barren and parched…
without a shelter over head,
lives utterly famished
with wolves raging in their bellies,
lives akin to … the quadruped,
and, a la cadavers.
Their tales and tragedies
I tried to put into my words
breathing life into them.
I yearned to dispel the gloom
and usher in aurorae in their lives…
I wasn’t aware.
That day…
In the evening when
we were exploring the beauty of life
exchanging livelinesses of the past
they suddenly descended on us.
I could not reassure you
that I know
your tears
were not for me and me alone, but
they were tributes
to countless oppressed souls;
that they were
scuds of happiness
beacons of hope, and
betides of radiant dawns.
I am sorry
I could not tell you it all.
.
[Central Jail, 15.1.1976]
Bojja Tarakam
27 June 1939 – 16 September 2016
Telugu Poet
From “Nadi Puttina Gomtuka” – 1983
అనువాదలహరి 