*
Indiska oceanen, den minsta av de tre oceanerna, belägen mellan Afrika, Asien och Australien. Indiska oceanen upptar 14 % av jordens yta och är den minst kända och utforskade oceanen. Källa: NE
 |
| Tairea (in 1950's) |
Crossing the Indian ocean, by Meena Alexander (f. 1951)
(from Poetics of Dislocation. University of Michigan Press, 2009.)
I was with my mother on the S.S.Jehangir, crossing the Indian Ocean. Midway on the journey I turned five. Bombay was far behind and Port Sudan still to come. It was my first sea voyage.
Until then I had lived on solid land, on the Indian subcontinent and all my journeys had been by train or car or on small wooden boats on the canals and waterways of the coastal region I come from.
The sea cast me loose.
The sea tore away from me all that I had. In doing so, it gave me an interior life far sooner than I would have had otherwise, but at great cost.
I was forced to enter another life, the life of the imagination.
But it was not as yet the life of language.
I had few words at my disposal, and those I had came from several languages that cohabited within my head. What I felt as a child and held deep within myself quite exceeded the store of words within my reach.
***
I Västvinddriften är vågorna på grund av de stabila kraftiga cirkumpolara vindarna stora och långa. Inga hinder finns för vågrörelsen. I monsunvindsområdet kring ekvatorn och norra Indiska oceanen påverkas vågorna av vindens växlande riktning, men även här kan rätt stora vågor byggas upp. Stormvågor uppkommer i cyklonerna. Tsunamivågor eller jordbävningsvågor har orsakat stor förödelse i området, inte minst i Sri Lanka under tsunamikatastrofen 2004. Källa: NE
*
Nästa dikt är från Meena Alexanders senaste bok, "Birthplace with buried stones" (2013).
Autobiography, by Meena Alexander
(from Birthplace with buried stones : poems. Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 2013.)
Out of a porthole a child pokes her head.
Rocks prance under water,
Sunlight burns a hole in air
Fit for a house to fall through.
Palm trees dive into indigo.
Where is Kochi now?
Out on deck men raise glasses of cognac,
Women in chiffon saris
Giggle at the atrocious accents of the poor
Trapped in the holds with their tiny cooking stoves
And hunks of burlap to sleep in.
Between sari hems and polished toes,
The child sees flying fish
Vomited by the sea —
Syllables lashed to their rainbow wings,
Tiny bodies twisting in heaps.
Sea salt clings to them.
The sea has no custom, no ceremony.
It makes a theater for poetry,
For a voice that splits into two, three:
Drunken migrations of the soul.
No compass to the sea. The sea is memory.
***
Indiska oceanen bildades när Gondwanaland, en del av den stora Pangeakontinenten, bröts upp i flera delar och de nuvarande kontinenterna bildades. Därvid drev Indien från Afrika mot Eurasien och Arabiska havet öppnade sig. Samtidigt drev Antarktis söderut och själva Indiska oceanen bildades mellan Indien, Ostindiska halvön och Australien. Liksom i Atlanten förekommer seismisk och vulkanisk aktivitet utmed den stora mittryggen. Källa: NE
Den avslutande dikten är faktiskt under bearbetning och ännu inte publicerad. Meena Alexander läste upp delar av den vid New York University förra året. Några av raderna påminner om den första dikten i inlägget.
Shook silver, by Meena Alexander
(extract from Indian Ocean blues)
I was a child on the Indian Ocean.
Deck-side we dance in a heat-haze,
Toes squirm under silver wings.
Under burlap someone weeps.
Amma peers out of the porthole,
Sari stitched with bits of saffron,
Watch out for flying fish
She cries.
Our boat is bound for Africa.
They have goats and cows just like us,
Also snakes that curl
under the frangipani tree.
Remember what grandmother said?If you don’t keep that parasol
Over your head
You’ll turn into a little black girl.
Where is she now,
Child crossing the livid sea?
Older now,
I must speak to the shadows.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar