Prabuddha XI

This is the eleventth part of the translation of Mahagama Sekera's epic poem 'Prabuddha', an exercise that has the permission and blessings of the immediate family of Mahagama Sekera. Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI , VII, VIII,  IX and X were published in www.malindapoetry.blogspot.com.

Prabuddha,

sprawled on a sofa
gathered the remnants
of a festivity
that had settled
upon female corporeality
and caught in the bright
of glittering light
‘wafters of unpleasant odours
the guttural inhale-exhale
of the snotty nosed people
themselves sprawled
with the hidden un-secreted
in the classic manner
of abandonment.[1]

A graveyard!

That’s what this is, isn’t it?

Aren’t you distraught
just as I am?

Yasodha!

Give me an answer

show me a way out
grant me peace of mind
because I cannot leave you
because I have to remain
because I am here
with you
because of you.

Floating like a dream

a female form came a-calling
kept her head on his shoulder
took his hand and squeezed
and kept it on her thigh.

Stop!

his mind drew back from reverie
as though stung,
he looked around
cautiously:
‘Where was she,
was Yasodha around,
did she see?’

No,

Yasodha
was nowhere near.
 
At the end of the long hall
in the gloom ’neath an archway
just the blurred frame
of an embrace
human forms, yes
but she was
nowhere near.

Pain filled his mind

jealously engulfed his mind,
he pushed aside the woman
shook away her hand
and stood up. 

And as though a poisonous serpent
had stung with potency
Prabuddha roared
like one who had seen a ghost:

‘Ya….soo dha…!’

His voice reverberated around the walls

shook the hallway in earthquake vibrancy;
the arches trembled.
 
She was calm
her mind unperturbed
she spoke,
her voice in unsurprised evenness:

‘Why all this sound and fury,

this
after all
is the custom of our tribe.’

He raised his hand

and brought it down
with the full weight of anger
throwing her back
on to a couch.

Pained,
he raised a glass
and gulped it down
in one breath.

There was smashing
of bottle and glass
overturning
of chair and table
an animal cry
did the echo round
from wall to wall
and then
the laughter of derision. 

Prabuddha stumbled down the stairs

ran all the way
to the wide open road.

The darkest night

had annexed
the Street of Solitude
upon which fell
the largest drops and the loudest
of monsoonal wind-lash.

Prabuddha ran

sprinted
as he had never done before
along a road whose far end he could not see
drenched in the cold
awash in insanity
without destination
screaming
again and again
the innocence of seeking
unblemished love:

‘Yasodha!’ 

The word, the name, the sound

entered and disappeared into
the boulder-displacing, tree-twisting storm,
found residence in the splattering thunder
the lightning flash,
was lost in the timeless waters of millenneic rains
was absorbed by the soul
of vast, depthless canyons
in the continent of darkness.

[THIS ENDS THE FIRST SECTION OF MAHAGAMA SEKERA'S CELEBRATED EPIC POEM, 'PRABUDDHA']
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[1] Amavatura