Silent Farewells – By Ra Sh

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Pic by Pavel Danilyuk

 

 

When things start leaving you
they don’t say bye.
Silently, they leave in a row.

My dad did not say bye
when he died.
My mom did not say bye
when she died.

My house did not say bye
when it quietly collapsed.
My garden did not say bye
when it went under water.

Finally, my love my love
my love did not say bye
when she left
when she left.

When I left myself
I left quietly
leaving no trail of good byes.
But I heard a violin from afar.


 

About the Author

Ravi Shanker (aka Ra Sh) is a poet and translator based in Palakkad, Kerala. He has published four collections of poetry, Architecture of Flesh (Poetrywala), Bullet Train and Other Loaded Poems (Hawakal), Kintsugi by Hadni (RLFPA) and In the Mirror, Our Graves, a chapbook with Ritamvara Bhattacharya.  Ravi Shanker is also a translator whose English translations include Mother Forest (Women Unlimited), Waking is Another Dream (Navayana), Don’t Want Caste (Navayana), Kochiites (Greenex), How to Translate an Earthworm (Dhauli Books) and The Ichi Tree Monkey and new and selected stories of Bama (Speaking Tiger).