KALPNA SINGH-CHITNIS

Black Magic

 

 

 

He made a circle

we children sat around

the basket flipped open

and the earth got the goose-bumps.

 

The serpent vengefully raises its hood

and dashes to the ground

on flute music, a girl dances

and a boy juggles on the tight rope.

 

The crowd claps,

as the tom-tom plays,

and he makes the girl unconscious

with his rosary,

 

covers her body with a dark linen,

the skull giggles,

and the tom-tom plays again

under the old banyan tree!

 

He ripped her stomach open,

with a knife, it's blood,

it is real blood...

the girl is dead!

 

The boy circles around wide eyed,

almost insane, and says -

she won’t wake up,

she will never wake up again,

 

ladies, gentlemen

children and friends,

please give us something in her memory,

in her name...

 

The one who won’t be kind,

is going to die

in the middle of the night,

 

I grope for a coin

but find nothing in my school bag,

 

my heart sinks,

and I push my way through the crowd,

trying not to be seen,

 

come home running

and collapse in my bed!

 

And as the night deepens,

I find myself hanging upside down,

among the fibrous roots of a banyan tree,

swinging in the air,

 

and in the middle of the night,

exactly at midnight,

my breathing stops

and I'm nowhere!

 

I wasn’t anywhere,

I do not know, where I was

I still do not know,

where I am!

 

Gypsies

 

 

 

They are gypsies,

bright, crisp and colorful,

like the blossoms in the desert.

 

The entire earth is tied to their feet like an anklet,

and they like their living folklores,

never stayed in one place...

 

On the sleeves of the winding roads

under barren skies,

they sound like their empty vessels

on silent nights,

 

They bring shrubs,

leaves of palm and dates,

to make a roof for the hot summer days,

 

They cast statues, and sell them

in bustling streets of the cities and villages,

 

They come and go,

they will go back again,

leaving the smell of their millet

 

 

in the ashes of their hearths,

 

and the melody of their songs

lingering in the winds...

 

They are gypsies,

bright, crisp and colorful,

like the blossoms in the deserts.