English

Purananuru 248

The little white lilies,
poor things,

gave me tender leaf
to wear, when I was young.

Now, my great husband is dead,
I eat at untimely evening hours

and the lilies give me lily seed,
a widow's rice.

Purananuru 256

Potter,
O potter,

I've come with him
through narrow places

like a tiny white lizard
hugging the spoke

of a cart wheel.
Be kind,
make me an urn
for his burial
in the wide earth

and make it
wide enough
for me too,

you who make pitchers
for this city,
this wide, old city.

Purananuru 255

I cannot cry out,
I'm afraid of tigers.
I cannot hold you,
your chest is too wide
for my lifting.

Death
has no codes
and has dealt you wrong,
may be
shiver as I do!

Hold my wrist
of bangles,
let's get to the shade
of that hill.
Just try and walk a little.

Purananuru 252

Bathing in the roaring white waterfall
has changed his color.
His matted locks are brown leaves
on a blinding tree,
and he is now plucking for food
a bunch of thick leaves
from a bindweed.

He was a hunter once.
He had a net
of words,
and he caught peacocks
that wandered innocently
into his yard.

Purananuru 251

We've seen him before
in a house
spaced as in a picture,

with small-bangled women,
mirror images
of the goddess on the hill:

this charmer,
how he made them all lovesick
till their ornaments came loose.

Now he bathes
among bamboos
in the tall hill's waterfalls,

lights red fires
with wood
that wild elephants bring,

and dries the twists of hair
that hang down his back.

Purananuru 242

The young will not wear it.
Bangled women will not pluck it.
Neither minstrel, nor his singing woman,
will bend this stalk of jasmine
with the crook of a lute
to wear it in their hair.

Cattan of the Big Lance
who mastered men
with his manhood,
is gone.

Why do you bloom now,
jasmine,
in this land of Ollai?

Purananuru 239

He has held
women's arms
covered with bangles;

has worn flowers
plucked from young guardian trees;

covered himself with sandal,
cool and fragrant;

killed off dynasties
of enemies;

and praised friends.

He would not buckle
to the strong, nor swagger
with the meek;

never knew how to beg a favor

Purananuru 235

If he found a little liquor,
he would give it to us.

If he had more,
he would drink happily
while we sang.
Where is he now?

If he had even a little rice,
he shared it
in many plates.
Where is he now?

If he had more,
he shared it
in many more plates.
Where is he now?

He gave us
all the flesh
on the bones.
Where is he now?

Wherever spear and arrow flew,

Purananuru 232

Let day, let night, come no more.
Let all my days come to nothing.

We have put peacock feathers
on his headstone
and poured bark-wine
in little bowls for him:

will he accept them,
who didn't accept a whole country
of mountain peaks?

Purananuru 231

This bright burning pyre
of black half-burned faggots,
pieces picked as if by a gypsy
in a field fire,

may it burn brighter
till it burns down to a handful.
Or rise in flames
and reach out to heaven.

The fame of our sun-like king,
his white umbrellas cool
as the moon,

will not blacken,
will not die.