Photograph by Susanta Bamerjee
Photograph by Susanta Bamerjee
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  I will meet you yet again  

  Ghosts
  Vol IV : issue 4

  Cover page
  David Lelyveld
  Joginder Paul
  Antara Dev Sen
  Evald Flisar
  Amrita Pritam
  
Nirupama Rao
  Only in Print

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Amrita Pritam

Oil on canvas by PROKASH KARMAKAR

I will meet you yet again
How and where
I know not
Perhaps I will become a
figment of your imagination
and maybe spreading myself
in a mysterious line
on your canvas
I will keep gazing at you.

Perhaps I will become a ray
of sunshine to be
embraced by your colours
I will paint myself on your canvas
I know not how and where —
but I will meet you for sure.

Maybe I will turn into a spring
and rub foaming
drops of water on your body
and rest my coolness on
your burning chest
I know nothing
but that this life
will walk along with me.

When the body perishes
all perishes
but the threads of memory
are woven of enduring atoms
I will pick these particles
weave the threads
and I will meet you yet again.

Translated from the Punjabi by Nirupama Dutt

 
 
Respected poet and a pioneering woman writer of India, Amrita Pritam writes in Punjabi. Her honours include the Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi Awards. She lives in Delhi. This poem was written in her sickbed for her partner, the painter Imroz