Their own moons ....

My friend NU posts photos on Wednesdays. Sometimes I post poetry as comments on those. Recently , I posted my comments as a poem in my native language, Marathi. Then she got a comment on that, asking her for a translation, as the person asking belonged to an area of India that spoke a different language. (We simply beat the rest of the world in the number of languages we have here, not to speak of the dialects).

I attempted the translation.

See both below ! In the King's (!) language and the Queen's English :-)

(photo by Nupur Phatak)

हिरवाई तीच , तृण हि तेच ,
त्यातून घुमणारा वारा हि तोच ;
पण आजकालच्या जगांत तारे इतके झालेत
कि प्रत्येकाला वेगळा चंद्र लागतो …
कधी अवखळ गुलाबी ,
कधी लहानपणचा चकचकीत पिवळा ,
कधी शिस्तीत रागावलेला ज्वलंत नारिंगी,
आणि
कधी तरी
म्हातारपणी संथ वाहणार्या
आयुष्याच्या निळ्या पाण्यासारखा …..
आणि
हिरवाई तील एक झाड
फांद्या झटकून वर बघतं
आणि म्हणत ,
“मला पण खेळायला कोणीतरी हवं,
मी या चंद्रांना फेसबुक वर
फ्रेंड रिक्वेस्ट पाठवू का काय ?….”


The same greenery,
the same blades
of grass,
And the same wind
breezing through….
But in today’s world,
there is
such a surfeit
of stars,
all hankering
after their own moon…
A bashful coy pink,
sometimes,
a shiny childhood yellow;
then sometimes,
an angry older orange,
and sometimes,
a cool blue
to match your
calm, older,
slowly flowing life…
But somewhere,
a flighty green tree,
thrusts and
brushes down
its branches,
looks up,
and says,
“I think
I want to play too;
You think
I can send
a friend request
to one of the moons on facebook ?”