Along the highways
of a refugee’s life
snapshots of childhood memories
hang:
hedges overspread with field bean
thick with honeybees,
a courtyard filled with goat droppings,
the shade of a portia-tree,
school children under a neem-tree,
a pond swarming with buffaloes
woods echoing with the koel’s song
the sea-shore where sea-birds call.
The highways carry us along
to yet other highways.
© 2011 Malathi Maitri. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2015 by Lakshmi Holmström. All rights reserved.
