Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Ashok Vajpeyi

REPETITION

Consigned to a shallow river
are father’s mortal remains,
mother keeps appearing often
in poems,
spread in front
a neem tree, its ancestral shade.
 
Time that has gone by
comes again,
like a metre, repeating itself.
 
We are not
what our forefathers were
and our parents,
yet again
we are what they were.
 
Our home is the one
made by our forefathers –
like water we flow
here and there
carving a path,
meandering, happy
coming down a slope,
from the rock
into a waterfall,
like an unexpected shower
in the evening
waking up the plants at night
becoming a wonder
in the morning glow,
do we arrive in the end
at the shores of our forefathers?

REPETITION

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REPETITION

Consigned to a shallow river
are father’s mortal remains,
mother keeps appearing often
in poems,
spread in front
a neem tree, its ancestral shade.
 
Time that has gone by
comes again,
like a metre, repeating itself.
 
We are not
what our forefathers were
and our parents,
yet again
we are what they were.
 
Our home is the one
made by our forefathers –
like water we flow
here and there
carving a path,
meandering, happy
coming down a slope,
from the rock
into a waterfall,
like an unexpected shower
in the evening
waking up the plants at night
becoming a wonder
in the morning glow,
do we arrive in the end
at the shores of our forefathers?

REPETITION

Consigned to a shallow river
are father’s mortal remains,
mother keeps appearing often
in poems,
spread in front
a neem tree, its ancestral shade.
 
Time that has gone by
comes again,
like a metre, repeating itself.
 
We are not
what our forefathers were
and our parents,
yet again
we are what they were.
 
Our home is the one
made by our forefathers –
like water we flow
here and there
carving a path,
meandering, happy
coming down a slope,
from the rock
into a waterfall,
like an unexpected shower
in the evening
waking up the plants at night
becoming a wonder
in the morning glow,
do we arrive in the end
at the shores of our forefathers?
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
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