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.
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.
