THE HOMELESS CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE GARDEN

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
POONGAAVIL URANGICH CHELGIRA VEEDATRA KUZHANDHAIGAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
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When their eyes are filled up with sleep
the children come to the garden
where entry is free for the kids.
The boy who has lost his hands
begs for an artificial limb
with the remaining bits and pieces.
He keeps wandering, carrying along
the dream for hands.
Converting into photographs his mangled face
and the fragment of his severed hands
He goes on asking for help
Everything remains deep in slumber
far away.
That boy, added to the loss of his hands,
has lost his smile too.

When the nine year old little girl
who has gone to School
is being gang-raped by
wild animals called army-men
these children are fast asleep
in the garden en route.
Text-books and note-books of children
are all blood-smeared and drenched.
These children eyeing the ice-fruit
are wishing with all their heart to have it.
With blood dripping non-stop
the fruits are being eaten away by Time.
They keep sharing among themselves
the whole lot of violations.

The world snatched away from the children
in a terrible scheme
of too great a magnitude
and sabotaged beyond repair
The world of children torn and thrown away
so thoroughly destroyed,
their dreams nipped and ripped apart
in an all too expensive plan
are being torn and thrown away gleefully
by the Monkeys
that keep telling tales in the garden incessantly.
When evening sets in
the homeless children
keep going back somewhere.

Throughout the day
the homeless children were playing
by my side.
With their Smiles and Hopes and Mercy
for the new world
they went on filling up
the applications.

And all those appeals
that the children were
writing and forwarding all through the day
have been thrown away in great haste
as part of the heap of garbage
into the disintegrated railway-lane.
Seeing the way blood seeping
out of the books brought by their off-springs
the Mothers begin to agonize.
The trees of the garden
where the children slept and left
are withering away and falling.
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