The voice.

Devi, N. Revathi

I talked all this time and you listened to whatever I said because I don't have anything to say

And now I have something to say something passionate something I love something pure and when I speak nobody listens

For that reason or maybe for some other reason my voice has gone silent

maybe because of the intoxification of losing oneself or the sweetness of pleasure or maybe because you won't listen to it anyway the voice has become silent

What if in this silent voice there are sighs of love of a heart sleeping at one with itself

Translations from Telugu by V. Narayana Rao and A. K. Ramanujan

N. REVATHI DEVI was born in Tenali, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, in 1951. She held an M.A. in philosophy and was completing a doctoral dissertation on Jean-Paul Sartre at Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, when she ended her own life in 1981. Her poems, written in Telugu, were collected and published posthumously in Shilalolitha (The Rock that Sways; 1981).