UNBEARABLE SILENCE
OF GOD
PROSE POEM
I look at you in helpless silence, incapable of doing a
thing for you. In the middle of the white-washed walls of the hospital ward you
lie, groaning quietly in the dark abyss of pain. Only a miracle can bring you some relief. I
have nothing to offer, but a prayer. All
my prayers reach the Almighty, an attempt I shall make. I am trying to shake off His unbearable
silence. Desolation and numbness in your
eyes drive me crazy and as I leave the ward quietly, I hear the footsteps of
death. I want to cut off my ears to block their sound. But will that delay the advent of death? From your voicelessness before death, I move
toward your silence after death – and I do not even want to feel angry or shed
tears at my helplessness.
Suresh Parshottamdas Dalal.
Translated from the Gujarati
by Bhadra Patel-Vadgama.
© 1996, by the Poetry Translation
Center Workshop I found this
on page 505 in Language
For a New Century,
Contemporary Poetry from
the Middle East, Asia And Beyond,
editor Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal
and Ravi Shannkar.
Translated from the Gujarati
by Bhadra Patel-Vadgama.
© 1996, by the Poetry Translation
Center Workshop I found this
on page 505 in Language
For a New Century,
Contemporary Poetry from
the Middle East, Asia And Beyond,
editor Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal
and Ravi Shannkar.
Painting on top: Hospital Ward
by Edvard Munch.
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