FOUR CLUBS, THREE ACES AND A JOKER
Even before I shuffle the cards, you know
four clubs, three aces and one joker
appear to tell me with their oblique smile
they have already revealed
what I have, what I do not have in my hands
Yet I keep hoping
this game of cards is being played according to the rules
The trains that were to arrive today,
their time had long elapsed
Every passenger who was to arrive departed long back
Perhaps I turned up late
or perhaps the trains to my destination were not there now
All I heard now was a long-drawn coarse crooning
that continued to resonate in the shadows of the ridges of my words
The weaver of thoughts
was there no more in the radiance of that lingering murk
Yet I keep playing this game of cards amidst your absence,
A wind that shivers the skin coat betwixt a startling sunshine
tests my shrivelled shadow
Thinking to myself, this body will not remain with me in future,
the one I stare at for long, standing in one corner of the station
this delay perhaps is there in some time table
-Mohan Rana
TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY MOULINATH GOSWAMI
