HAWAKAL Newsletters

The Whispering Tree: poems of love and longing
K. Satchidanandan

[translated from Malayalam by the poet]

Lovers can define love. What happens when a poet turns lover? He interprets it as a fever that “subsides after a week of nightmares.” The poet describes fondness, if it fits as a perfect synonym of ‘love,’ as smallpox. The lover bears “scarred memories” until death. He marks love as cancer that takes time to get diagnosed. The poet finds it