Were those your bangles I heard as you wiped your brow or were they the clinking of cowrie-shells as you put them in holes seven by seven? I thought I heard you laugh making an unexpected, clever move or was it the sound of pearls falling, one by one? Was that a cry of victory as you have won the match or was it your honey-voiced anguish never willing to lose fair or otherwise? That was clearly the board tossed in indignant, violent protest and utter denial that you lost; or did you just claim with eyelashes pleading for agreement that you tripped on a floorboard? But there is another game afoot, isn't it - a love game you play with my heart-breaking imagination? ( Pallankuzhi is a popular board game in Tamil Nadu) (Published in Indian Review, April 2011 )
The message is supreme;
Born in the heart,
and lilting itself
from tongue to tongue,
throwing its scent
over wind and wave;
travelling on dots
or fingers
when blindness
or silence bar its way.
It hews itself into stone
or burns itself onto magnetic discs;
it is the message that lives
and I exist
solely to pass it on.