BUNKER OF THE DARK AGE

DEEPACHELVAN’S POEM captioned இருண்டகாலத்தின் பதுங்குழி
Rendered in English by Latha Ramakrishnan(*First Draft)

In the frozen faces of those wordless, voiceless
the flies revel, singing and dancing

In between day and night
when a mammoth army went past our village
a child playing there went missing.

There is none to accept the child
that was arrested on the land
sans witnesses;
The children hide and crouch
in a dark age once again.
No aeroplanes hovering above
Shells don’t come from any side.
Children feel threatened at the sight of
sky and directions.
We possess no guns;
No cannons;
No aircrafts;
We have renounced battlefronts;
Have shut all the barracks;
Yet we are surrounded;
A war is being waged.
Along the road where the army
goes around keeping vigil
someone had halted his cycle
and went away.
I am living in a house
where someone keeps knocking at the doors;
I am pedalling my cycle in the street
where someone keeps chasing with riffle.
In a land where everyone is being rummaged
where is a bunker for me?

Children have not seen glorious times
All I have _
darkened bunkers