In the oppressive night

by SIVARAMANI*

In the oppressive night
of our time of war,
our little ones
grow big.

Their lovely morning,
like the shape of a little bird,
is waylaid by every
blood-soaked faceless human body
lying across its way.
Their laughter,
ringing with the thrill of life lived
is broken by
crashing stone walls.
Our children
are no longer
children.

The silence of the starry night
is shattered by the burst of a
single bullet; it shatters
to nought the meaning
of all their child talk.
In the remaining light of the day
they forget to make
chariots out of the seeds
of the palmyrah fruit,
to indulge in the raucous play
of killithattu.

Instead
they know
when it’s time to shut the gate,
to listen to the dog’s bark,
to know its suspicious call,
to not ask questions,
to keep quiet when there are
no answers
to their queries.
They have learnt like cattle
to habituate themselves
to all of this.

To pluck the wings of the dragonfly
fashion sticks and poles into guns
turning friend into foe
in the game of murder;
This has become
our children’s play.

In the oppressive night
of our time of war,
our little ones
have become adults.

(Translated from the Tamil by Sumathy and Nirmala Rajasingam. The line ‘fashion sticks and poles into guns’ is courtesy
Chelva Kanaganayagam)

Himal

*(Sivaramani killed herself in 1991 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, at the age of 23. She burned all her poems she could get hold of; only 23 survived. See Duke Journals for more. Ed.)