PADMA SACHDEV
Dogri and Hindi Poet and Writer.
Box of Pain
This head
That you see on my shoulders
Is not my head
It’s a box of pain
It jingles like a jinglebox
Pain moves in it round and round
Smoke rises
It smells
Like the smell of a pyre.
There are other pains too
Several of them
Some of memories
Some of secrets
That cannot be kept
Nor thrown away
Some pains of today
Some of yesterday.
But
There is another pain also
Which doesn’t make a sound
Which is only there
This pain is of that suffering
Which I do not share with you any more.
- translated from Dogri by Shivnath