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 Nissim
Ezekiel was born in Bombay in 1924. He is author of A Time to
Changes ( poetry , 1952) Sixty Poems ( poetry 1953) The Third (
poetry1959), The Unfinished Man ( Poetry-1960) The Exact Name (
Poetry , 1965) Hymns in the darkness !976) Latter Day
Psalm ( poetry- 1982) Edinburgh Interlude- Lightly (
poetry, 1983) and few plays. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in
1982.
5
So much light in total darkness!
So much courage given, beside the abyss!
Why was he forgiven.
helped,
comforted?
Whose the voice of truth
that spoke through the imperfect words?
He has lost faith in himself
and found faith at last.
6
How far a man may travel
in the wrong direction!
Now he is sung
in his hindsight wisdom.
His follies are familiar,
accepted
like old friends.
Incapable of quarrelling with them,
he maintains the
old
stale
unredeemable
relationships.
A single decision
is better than a hundred thoughts.
To hell with all directions, old and new.
7
There’s only this:
a
tarred road
under a
mild sun
after rain,
glowing;
wet, green leaves
patterned flat
on the pavement
around dog-shit;
one ragged slipper
near an open gutter,
three crows
pecking away as it.
And breasts, thighs, buttocks
swinging
now towards
now away from him.
8
He is now at the sources of it.
Self-love, vanity throw a sickly light on his gods.
He prays for power and stamina, to make it.
The prayers are answered. The gods are kind.
His house is built on rock.
It shakes in the wind.
All around it the land Is laid waste.
He sits alone and looks out of the window.
He contemplates the sources of his life.
9
That which has to be is being had here.
Don’t, she says, don’t,
conniving all the same.
Short of tearing her clothes
he’s using all his force.
Soon, he’s had what he wanted,
soft, warm and round.
Wasn’t it Blake who said
that the nakedness of woman is the work of God?
If only he could love the bitch!
There’s one thing to be said for hell:
it’s pretty lively place.
A man could be happy there.
10
A man, It’s often been said,
Is simply a man.
He’s not a
middle-aged man.
He’s not an old man.
He’s not a married man.
He’s not a
man with children.
He’s not a professor or a
journalist.
He’s not a foolish man or a wise man.
He’s not tall and handsome
or small and
crabbed-looking.
He’s simply a man,
and his
speech is human.
The rest is Important
to understand that speech.
11
The Enemy is
God
as the Unchanging
One.
All forms of God
and the God in all forms.
The absentee
landlord,
the official of all
officials.
The oppressor
who worships God
and the oppressed
who worship God
are victims
of the Enemy.
They rot in
families, in castes,
in
communities, in clubs,
in
political parties.
They stay
stable. They stay still.
Their hands continue to keep down the young.
12
Don’t curse the darkness
since you’re told not to,
but don’t be In a hurry
to light a candle either.
The darkness has Its secrets
which light does not know.
It’s a kind of perfection,
while every light
distorts the truth.
13
I met a man once
who had wasted half his life,
partly in exile from himself,
partly In a prison of his own making.
An energetic man, an active man.
I liked his spirit
and saw no hope for him.
Yet, he had the common touch;
he could, for Instance, work with his hands.
To others, all attentive.
To his own needs, indifferent.
A tireless social human being,,
destined always
to know defeat
like a twin-brother.
I saw him cheerful
in the universal darkness
as I stood grimly
In my little light.
14
He said:
‘in a single day
I’m forced to listen
to a dozen film songs,
to see
a score of beggars,
to touch
uncounted strangers.
to smell
my biter native city.’
He said:
‘I’m forced by the five senses
to fear the five senses.
I heard him out
in black wordlessness.
15
Present at the creation
of the universe,
I would perhaps have proceeded
differently.
But if the destruction
Is in our lifetime,
the mushroom cloud
is as good a way
as any I can think of,
and more aesthetic.
16
In the presence of death,
remember, do not console yourself;
there’s only death here,
only life.
You are master
neither of death nor of life.
Belief will not save you,
nor unbelief.
All you have
Is the sense of reality,
unfathomable
as it yields its secrets
slowly
one
by
one.
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