60 Indian Poets
From this superb collection edited by Jeet Thayil for Penguin India, this poem by Gopal Honnalgere (1942-2003):
(I can’t seem to get the text formatting quite right, sorry)
The Donkeys
maybe it’s a legend
I don’t remember his name
a tibetan poet sat and wrote
poems poems poems all his life
when he was eighty nine
and with a mirror-like bald
head approaching death
he had with him three
donkey-loads of poems
he wanted to give them away
to a prayer wheel turning monastery
he carried them on three hired donkeys
and began to walk thinking about life
it was a god-freezing winter
the old man started shivering
and couldn’t walk
he made a bonfire of
one of his donkey-loads of poems
and warmed himself sitting near the fire
when he was about to start on the journey
a thought came into his mind -
he saw the donkeys, recalling one of his poems
on donkeys, the donkeys too were shivering
he again made a bonfire
of his two remaining donkey-loads
and made the donkeys stand
around the fire in trinity
the critics say
a single unburnt line of his poetry
discovered by posterity
is enough to express all his perception
you
search
for the donkey
you
ride
on
This is a beautiful poem. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Mukta Raut — December 2, 2008 @ 8:30 am