Had you not forgotten Kannada,
I'd have asked you to translate
"...laughter undressing like
the hindu newspaper on the floor
under the afternoon fan" *
to your Kannada friend
(Let's assume she forgot English, for poem's sake)
so you could have seen for yourself
the way her mouth formed an O,
like in awe, marveling
how beautiful and perfect that metaphor was.
Sometimes a smile is not the universal language,
So when the little boy cried when you smiled at him
you could have offered him a candy,
told him how much you love his Spider-Man shoes
(Let's assume he was Kannada, for poem's sake)
and received his half-toothed smile back
Because a smile will always be the universal language
whatever anybody says.
Had you not forgotten Kannada,
you would have taught it to me.
So I'd not have clicked a picture,
posing between the magnificent silk cotton tree
and the sign that said "Toilets at Entrance",
thinking it spelt out the tree's name.
Had you not forgotten Kannada,
You could have showed off
how 'kuni' is different from 'kunita'
or the precise difference between 'nanage adu gottu' and 'naanu adannu balle'
(Both mean 'I know', by the way. An irony, I know)
or showed me the beauty of the script-
how written Kannada should look like Muttina Haara or a Pearl Necklace
or that each letter could be written inside an O
Like an O of your friend's awe.
As if the language shows off itself,
does not need people showing it off-
like a true Queen.
Instead, you told me that 'mani hog' meant go home,
reminding me of that aching feeling
where you start to question your definitions
like your way back home.
or that of a poem.
-Zaynab
21 August 2022
*line from the poem, 'make a tree out of me' by earth_to_hp (see external link or inline comment)
A/N: Hi! I do not know any Kannada. So all of the words and facts in this poem are from the Internet. The most I did to verify the Kannada words was to Google Translate.
If anybody knows the language, I would appreciate if you could verify the words and correct any mistakes in the poem. Thank you.
YOU ARE READING
A Paint Bucket of Words
PoetryA poetry collection ATTENTION: If you are reading this story on any other platform other than Wattpad you are very likely to be at risk of a malware attack. If you wish to read this story in its original, safe form, please go to: https://www.wattpa...
