Left-over / Satchi

When do you grow old?

When a twenty-year old fall, bellowing
Trains its horns on your spine
You grow old

When a thirty-year old love affair, howling,
Sinks its teeth on your heart
You grow old

When a forty -year old rebuke, barking,
Leaps into your dreams
You grow old

When a fifty-year old death of a playmate, trumpeting
Crushes your brow
 You grow old

When a sixty-year old nightmare. raising its hood
Slithers towards you
 You grow old

When in summer you begin to pray for winter
And in winter for summer
And in neither for childhood
You grow old

When history begins to startle you more than does news
When waves seem to have ceased In the sea of questions
And future seems a desolate burnt-down city,
You grow old

Most of us are no more than
The nostalgia of ghosts.
Only some have a little life left in us,
 Like the small change left In a robbed home,
 Like the little reason left In a lunatic’s gibberish,
 Like the solitary seed left In a burnt-out forest.

K.Satchidanandan (Left-over)

( Translated from  Malayalam by the poet )