Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
There were rumours in the holy town—
Pablo Neruda was spotted on the ghats of the Phalgu River,
performing the funeral rites of his ancestors.
He arrived with ships, filled with geraniums,
tyrant flycatchers and hermit crabs for local villagers.
Crowds of women, and labourers from the sand mines,
gathered to catch a glimpse of his tanned handsome looks,
propagating fire and rebellion.
.
Tapping their feet and jingling their bangles,
they started singing his love poems in chorus
and offered him jasmine rice pudding in a copper vessel.
In the yellow flames of the sacrificial fire,
Pablo shaved his head and hairy chest —
.
weeping in sorrow of losing his friends in the Civil War.
Wrapped in mendicant betel leaves, he
remembered his house in Madrid with crescent balconies
.
on which the light of June slumbered like lovers in the shade.
Old-timers say—
after he finished all the rituals,
he became one of us,
searching for the secret springs
of the cursed river in summer heat.
I can’t tell you everything,
but I often hear Pablo’s voice between memory and time.
(Excerpted with permission from The Book of Bihari Literature, edited by Abhay K, published by HarperCollins India; 2022)
English