THUMBPRINTNE POETRY COLUMN
POETRY EDITOR ANANYA S GUHA'S COMMENTS:
Lalnunsanga Ralte's poems are evocative and lyrical. Cadenced somewhere between myth and memory making, the poems can be symbolically charged, where language is sharp and nuanced. The first poem is a good example. The poems rivet between the past, present and future
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Whereas
Whereas,
the letter arrives
folded in thirds,
its language stiff with starch,
its phrases stitched together
by the paranoia of touch
marching on with cold precision
like uniforms worn only in parades.
Whereas,
it declares,
that nothing can begin
until something else first ends,
the ink has more weight than intention,
and urgency must first be processed,
stamped, and filed,
in triplicate.
Whereas,
the desk groans
under paper heavy with careful vagueness
words that circle the point until
the point wears away to absence.
The message is never delivered,
only delayed in transit,
bound in ribbons of "pending,"
sealed with the wax of "not yet."
Whereas,
men and women inside offices
shuffle staplers and signatures,
measuring their afternoons in memos,
their mornings in coffee gone cold,
their evenings in silence stretched between
fluorescent hums.
(They must all hate Eliot!)
Whereas,
here, the red tape tangles itself into knots
no one remembers tying,
charity came, gets bludgeoned by codes and regulations
then rescued by salesmen dressed as samaritans
children ate the paper where it was written
Whereas,
outside, time unrolls freely—
a tree bends toward its own shadow,
a red-flanked bluetail departs whether or not it has permission,
— a child keeps chewing on the paper
Whereas,
Ma Sken has managed to procure a bottle
he's kind enough to sing an epitaph
for all that had to die without a song
his rapture reaches all our ears
untethered, unpunished, unfiled.
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Sometimes I Would Sit with My Anger
Sometimes, I would sit with my anger
at a table splintered by old conversations,
Smoke and rain lingering in its hairs
We would talk until the horizon relented
And the yolk of dawn—
Unhurried,
Luminates
Two stubborn animals circling each other around a cup of tepid tea.
I would trace the map of its body:
every thorn buried deep in its ribs,
quivering needles in a windstorm.
I would name them one by one—
Failure, the repeated banging of an old door ajar;
Loss, an autumn leaf is the husk of a leaf;
Shame, its four little feet slipping and skiding across a waxed floor.
Many heavy names
each hanging in the air,
Settle down by the grass in frozen dew,
trapping old, buzzing moments.
I’d listen to its voice unravel—
at first a banshee screaming
into the porcelain night,
then a knife-edge rasp of threats
pressed at the throat of years, of silence, of suffering
Till finally it sighs, sags and sobs
A wet, fractured cry of iron and exhausted storms.
Then having learned the weight and weather of it,
I would rise, dust and shadows on my hands
and come to meet you—
to your anger standing beside you,
I would greet it as an old friend,
call each of its wounds by the names I have gathered in the dark,
and watch as they shake and shudder—
not in fury,
but in the strange ache
of finally being seen.
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Soft-Boiled Rice
When my mother was about to begin Class 3
She was taken out of school and told
She was now old enough to work in the fields
A girl does not need to go to school, they said
A man will find her someday,
And he’ll take care of her.
So she learned to sow instead of spell,
Daydreamed instead of memorised
Firewood was a school bag
A drying well was a blackboard
And while eating soft boiled rice
Thought of the man she was told was looking to find her
Then one day my father appeared,
He was kind and handsome she said,
And more importantly, he went to school.
As a token of love, she was given a small black and white photograph
That she hid like a precious gem under her pillow
She looked at it till the lanterns burned out
Or the moon kind enough to let her stay in her reverie a bit longer.
When he would visit,
She would make him soft boiled rice
And while he ate, talk about the future together.
When he left us, I was just a month old,
My mother still kept his photograph under her pillow
But one day, my enraged grand aunt found it,
cursed his name,
tore the photograph into a hundred little pieces
And threw them away
Late at night, when all had slept
My mother lit a lantern and picked up all the pieces from the dustbin
She then took a bowl of soft-boiled rice
And pasted all the pieces back together
Years later,
When I had become a young man
She found me hunched on the floor
I couldn't eat.
She learned that my heart had been broken
Broken into a hundred little pieces
She picked me up and sat next to me
She told me that she knows it hurts
Hand on my head she offered up to God a prayer
She then disappeared into the kitchen
And reappeared with a bowl of soft-boiled rice.
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Cancer
All our stories have the same ending
Though no one speaks of Cinderella's final days
Wandering the halls of a silent castle
Clutching a pouch of shattered glass
All our stories have the same ending
My neighbour had plans for another son
Produced four daughters in tender succession
Now, it’s stage four, shared over the phone
And the thin wall between our homes
Cannot block out
His four daughters insistent and persistent “I love you pa!”
Over kisses upon kisses upon kisses upon…
All our stories have the same ending
After a lifetime of work and sacrifice,
Gazing upon his newly built house
A poet looks reflectively
He says,
“This is my house,
Then my daughter’s,
Then a stranger’s.”
All our stories have the same ending
Nothing really matters
Except, perhaps, what the heart remembers
While contemplating life,
Or reading this poem.
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Saudade
So, we go no more to rim*
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
I walk past silent houses,
Sullen windows
And my feet forget to turn,
Into an alley with faded footprints,
Lined with shrubs of daisies.
They have long erased the traces
Of broken stems by idle hands.
May they also forgive.
But further on,
When a new blue door appears,
As we often do, we turn back
To what is most familiar
To begin again from there.
A quick, single glance,
And saudade fills the night.
Love is not forgotten
Though we go no more to rim
So late into the night
*rim - the Mizo ritual of courting where a man would go to visit his lady interest in her home after dinner.
ABOUT THE POET: Lalnunsanga Ralte lives in Shillong, Meghalaya where he works as an Associate Professor at the School of Languages and Cultural Communication, Martin Luther Christian University. He has a PhD in Literature from NEHU, Shillong. He is a member of the North East Writer's Forum and has participated in various literary events all around the country. His poems have been published in collections, magazines, journals and anthologies such as Eastern Muse, Poetry of Dissent, Indian Quarterly, the Indian Yearbook and The Red Hen Anthology of Contemporary Indian Writing. He was also part of the Poets Translating Poets project organised by the Goethe-Insitut, Mumbai and was invited to read his poems in a poetry festival in Germany.
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