Sunday, March 10, 2013

"Empty Space"

I heard this poem the other day on the Poem of the Day podcast. I am not sure that I completely "get" it, but I have been thinking about it since I first heard it. Click here to hear an audio version of it, which begins with an excerpt in Punjabi.

"Empty Space"
Amrita Pritam

There were two kingdoms only:
the first of them threw out both him and me.
The second we abandoned.

Under a bare sky
I for a long time soaked in the rain of my body,
he for a long time rotted in the rain of his.

Then like a poison he drank the fondness of the years.
He held my hand with a trembling hand.
“Come, let’s have a roof over our heads awhile.
Look, further on ahead, there
between truth and falsehood, a little empty space.”

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I love this, most of all because it isn't clear and it isn't easy; it asks much of the reader. One of my aims in the poetry I write is not only to encapsulate my experience/thoughts/emotions in images, but to provoke thought. If a writer has done that, he/she has succeeded, in my opinion.