A Poem by Deebachelvan titledILAADHAVARGALIN ALAVATRA KANAVUGAL
Translated into English by latha ramakrishnan
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They with Great Dream
kissed Death
In the end we don’t have even
tombs filled with their memories
The mothers have lost their torches
along with their sons and daughters
Wives have lost along with their smiles
their words on the tomb too.
With innumerable memories of the dream
the sky weighs heavy, looking crest-fallen.
No flowers bloomed this time
With blood oozing out of the leaves,
the roots of the flowery-trees had been torn apart
Banging the heads against the electric-post
The heart calls out to those who are no more
Sucking out the Dream and taking it off
The world has finished devovouring them.
The Elegy written on them
lies inside fire and turning to ashes.
This Day they declare
as having wiped them out completely.
The child which comes carrying a torch in its hand
digs the sand
searching for the tomb.
Even the last priced possession of our Memory
they had erased with utmost haste.
And even the right and the day to cry had been snatched
away by them
In the hearts
tombs are surfacing everywhere
Somewhere in a remote corner the Dream is raging and burning
and pouring down.
In the deserted land
Abandoned and so full of terrible wilderness
skeletons filled with the great sorrow of History
Rise up and move on.
Turning the soil upside down
the walls of the tombs
having words of heroism written on them
are further pushed inside, deep down.
The war of tombs have come to an end.
With the people their tombs too
are wiped off.
None have flowers
None have tombs
The torches extinguished keep wandering everywhere
The photographs of courageous faces have all been
dissolved.
People have been betrayed.
The warriors were won over in the end.
This day is filled with abject defeat.
From the great land where
the Dream was nourished and nurtured
the stench of the burial ground
where the gruesome genocide had taken place
gathers and shrouds everything all too suffocating.
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They with Great Dream
kissed Death
In the end we don’t have even
tombs filled with their memories
The mothers have lost their torches
along with their sons and daughters
Wives have lost along with their smiles
their words on the tomb too.
With innumerable memories of the dream
the sky weighs heavy, looking crest-fallen.
No flowers bloomed this time
With blood oozing out of the leaves,
the roots of the flowery-trees had been torn apart
Banging the heads against the electric-post
The heart calls out to those who are no more
Sucking out the Dream and taking it off
The world has finished devovouring them.
The Elegy written on them
lies inside fire and turning to ashes.
This Day they declare
as having wiped them out completely.
The child which comes carrying a torch in its hand
digs the sand
searching for the tomb.
Even the last priced possession of our Memory
they had erased with utmost haste.
And even the right and the day to cry had been snatched
away by them
In the hearts
tombs are surfacing everywhere
Somewhere in a remote corner the Dream is raging and burning
and pouring down.
In the deserted land
Abandoned and so full of terrible wilderness
skeletons filled with the great sorrow of History
Rise up and move on.
Turning the soil upside down
the walls of the tombs
having words of heroism written on them
are further pushed inside, deep down.
The war of tombs have come to an end.
With the people their tombs too
are wiped off.
None have flowers
None have tombs
The torches extinguished keep wandering everywhere
The photographs of courageous faces have all been
dissolved.
People have been betrayed.
The warriors were won over in the end.
This day is filled with abject defeat.
From the great land where
the Dream was nourished and nurtured
the stench of the burial ground
where the gruesome genocide had taken place
gathers and shrouds everything all too suffocating.
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