Classic Poem

Purananuru 128

When the ape
on the bough
of the jackfruit tree
in the town's commons

mistakes for fruit
the eye
on the thonged drumheads
hung up there by mendicant bards,

he taps on it,

and the sound rouses
the male swans below
to answering song

in Potiyil, that hill where the clouds crawl,
hill of Ay
with war anklets on his feet,

hill inaccessible
to great kings,

yet open to the approaches
of dancers.