DEMON LANGUAGE by Malathi Maithri
(Translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström)
The demon’s features are all
woman
woman’s features are all
demon
Demon language
is poetry
Poetry’s features are all
saint
become woman
become poet
become demon
Demon language
is liberty
Outside Earth
she stands:
niili, wicked woman.
* The reference throughout this poem is to Karaikkal Ammai, one of the sixty-three canonized Saiva saints, who lived in the 6th century CE. Punithavathy (the ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’), as she was known in the world, was abandoned by her husband when he realized her extraordinary qualities. She then renounced her youth and beauty, took the form of a demon, and became a
RAIN-RIVER by Kutti Revathi
(Translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström)
I am the rain’s fall;
you are the pull of the river.
The force of our love’s union
is like red earth and pouring rain* –
the leaping of fish into the body –
the entwining of water-weeds.
The fierceness of your embrace
whirls me about
tosses me against the rock-beds
makes me lose my breath.
Your lap is my wheeling miracle-seat;
the prize conferred by the ancients.
The soft skin of your hands
strokes my eyes, reaching
around my neck.
When you come towards me, beckoning,
the grass tears my feet.
You are the hastening of time;
I am the blossoming season.
*The trope of red earth and pouring rain is an intertextual reference to a poem from Kuruntogai (c. 2nd century AD), ‘Yaayum yaaum yaaraagiyaro’, best known to non-Tamil readers in A.K. Ramanujan’s translation.
. poet-saint devoted only to Siva.
