The fault with the skull

The fault with the skullSuch is the faultwith the skullit breaks apartwith the slightest touch,.spurting blood, intellect, emotion,leaving you dazed.Lack of care makes bedwith the dead end..There are not alwayschances to make amends..***On reading the classicsTrying to translate Herta Muller'sThe Land of Green Plumsin which the bags of Lola's suitors.spill with the tongues and leversthat they stole from the slaughter houses,you are reminded of your grappling.with the reality of the sensory perceptionsof Chancelade in Le Clezio's Terra Amata.Even to read about cruelty.is like going through it.That is one reason you suspended Llosa'sThe War of the End of the World.Half-way through, as you have given upwatching movies on holocaust after the oneslike The Schindler's List or Life is Beautiful..To cope with the reading of the classics,you have strayed, in a sense, from your way,desperate to hang on to any piece, say.William Dunbar's Lament for the Makerswith its four-line stanzas ending with the refrain:"Timor Mortis Conturbat Me".while the priest in the village blesses you all: keep away,untimely death as he performs obsequiessprinkling the holy water from the Ganga on all present.on the death of the youngest in the family.You detest death no less thanyou detest life that seems to sparkle.sometimes bright, sometimes alluringlike the mountains Nanda Devi, Kanchanjungawhich you hoped to scale but dropped the idea.(as if you could have scaled them at all),like if it was necessaryto read to write..* * *.There is a hearth in my mind.Poems are of no use though,they have kept lightingthe lone lamp each timethe wind extinguishes it..There are times whenthat stump of lamp, unlit,keeps taunting me likea discarded lighthouse..While storm tossesthe paper boatsvainly I console themnot to worry..One day I shall bring fire,I tell myself, cheating the windand light the hearthsitting cold in my mind..* * *.Antonio in search of Shylock to give him His due pound of flesh.At a timewhen the glaciers are meltingmore than before.and the Tsunami is no morejust the matter of the Pacific,you say, "My pound of…".Why don't you be kindand slayme?.That'll fetch younot onebut one hundred pounds,.with bones and blood,skininclusive..Where are you now?I am movingwith all my mass,.your poundof fleshinclusive,.now faston the crestof the Tsunami waves.now slowon the hollowice to make myself light.of my guiltnot to havepaid back.your dues.It's not justa miracle that.while the restperished,you and I.have survived.We are thatflotsam and jetsam.thrown into the atticof the collectiveunconscious.so thatwe can beused as archetypes.so thatthey can behuman beings.and carry onbusinessin our garb..* * *.Nail.I almost nailed itas I caught it rifflingthrough my mind..Who was itor what was it after?I could not lay my finger.on it the last timeit showed up.Each time I have dived.into its possible motifsI have surfaced insteadwith jewels in oysters—.witnesses to the mutability,something akin to a ghostthat turns into a half-burnt.log once it is dawnin my grandma's tales,and myself.a feeble sound of a nailbeing driven to the woodof a dead tradition.* * *