The following poem has been translated and transcreated from the eminent poet, Mohan Rana’s poem, “Likha Kewal, Kewal Anuvaad” (“I Wrote Merely, Merely Translated”)

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While I Merely Translated

In the first instant of awakening
The hand of another’s was wedged to mine—
Siphoning mythologies not my own

Blank sheets wield no higher claims than vacant shrines
Yet, a poem’s destiny is never to explain
Nor map a linguistic itinerary

Words are merely the cartography
Of wandering seasons, fragments of earth
Weatherworn doors, and forlorn walls

While in the soul’s deep fissures, grief’s epistemes luxuriate
For translations to be penned and stealthily reread

Beyond their restless groves, subaltern shadows oscillate
Impatient to articulate their own folklore
While Autumn slumbers with unblinking eyes
Its last leaves are surrendered to the unmapped ground

I have trickled many a time into the well‑wrought urn of language
Coerced by a stubborn longing—to experience and relay—

Yet now, before another word can sprout
I must first inscribe this silence
Upon a mind returned to its beginnings
Sans the word, sans its silence, sans the translated

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About Mohan Rana

Mohan Rana, the eminent Indian poet of Hindi, was born in Delhi, and lives in Bath, in Britain. His most recent collection of poetry is Ekant Mein Roshandaan (Skylight in Solitude). He has published ten poetry collections and several of his poems have been commissioned for translation by the Arts Council England, among others. His writings have also been translated into several European languages.