One Should See One’s Home From Far Off

One should see one’s own home from far off.
One should cross the seven oceans
to see one’s home,
in the helplessness of the unbridgeable distance,
fully hoping to return some day.
One should turn around, while journeying,
to see one’s own country from another.
One’s Earth, from space.
Then the memory of
what the children are doing at home
will be the memory of what children are doing on Earth.
Concern about food and drink at home
will be concern about food and drink on Earth.
Anyone hungry on Earth
will be like someone hungry at home.
And returning to Earth
will be like returning home.

Things back home are in such a mess
that after walking a few steps from home,
I return homewards as if it were Earth.

by Vinod Kumar Shulk

translation: Vinod Kumar Shukla and Daniel Weissbort
From: Survival (ed. by Daniel Weissbort and Girdhar Rathi)
Publisher: Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2002



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