THE HEARTH WHERE BABIES ARE BEING BAKED

A poem in Thamizh by Deepachelvan titled
SISUKKAL VEGUM ADUPPU
[சிசுக்கள் வேகும் அடுப்பு]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


In the tent that keeps growing with reddish dust
in the town where the hearth is not lighted
the remaining two children too
unaware of feeding vessels kept on crying and
finally slept.
The Master of the house tied by the barbed-wire
eats the sin of war.
The Mistress carries along the tent of hunger
the sorrow of which is never to be washed away.
On the night when the uniforms and riffles
and the iron-caps
filled with the lines of rape fed on her
and satiated their hunger
the children went to sleep starving.
Killing the night-born babies
She buried them in the burning hearth.
Severing the umbilical chord
she smashed the uterus.
With blood flowing
she lay in the bloody-tent.
The children slept off without hunger.

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