Poems/Written in Tamil, carried into EnglishNov 1, 2026

Eeram

ஈரம்

தமிழில் படிக்க↓

Do the rivers know they are still in me?I stepped down into one and lost the bank.One passed me by. One turned and found the seasome other way. One, in a dry year, sank.

Not one of them runs where it used to go.Water moves on; that is all water knows.But each cut channels in me, running low,and a channel keeps the shape the water chose.

A poet said, long before I was born,that love is rain gone down into red ground.He said the two stay mingled, never torn.He did not say where all that rain is found.

And every river that has ever soaked mehas left its course in me, and left it deep,down in the wet the mind can never see.Nothing dries there. That is what I keep.

தமிழ்

நதிகளுக்குத் தெரியுமாஅவை என்னுள் என்றும் ஓடுவது?

ஒன்றில் இறங்கினேன் — கரையைத் தொலைத்தேன்.ஒன்று என்னைக் கடந்து சென்றது.ஒன்று வழிமாறி வேறொரு கடலில் கலந்தது.ஒன்று வற்றியது; அதன் தடம் வற்றவில்லை.

செம்புலப் பெயல்நீர் மண்ணுள் மறைந்தது —மண்ணில் என்றும் ஈரமே

நான் நனைந்த ஒவ்வொரு நதியின் தடமும்என் ஆழ் மன ஈரத்தில் என்றும்.

Eeram
ஈரம் is the word the poem turns on. It is damp — the wet left in soil after rain — and it is also tenderness; நெஞ்சில் ஈரம் is what you say of someone who can still be moved. Tamil holds both in one word, so the closing line can put the rivers and the kindness in the same place without choosing between them. English has no word that does that, so it keeps the damp and lets the tenderness stay implied. தடம் doubles in the same way — a trace, and the course a river cuts — which is what lets ஒன்று வற்றியது; அதன் தடம் வற்றவில்லை turn on one verb used twice: the river dried, its bed did not. Behind the seventh line stands குறுந்தொகை 40, the most quoted love poem in Tamil — யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி யறிதும் / செம்புலப் பெயல்நீர் போல / அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாங்கலந் தனவே: you and I, how did we ever come to know each other? Like red earth and falling rain, our loving hearts have mingled. The poet has no other name; he is called செம்புலப்பெயல்நீரார் after that one line. His poem is the mingling. This one is what is left long afterwards, when the rain has gone into the ground and the ground has not once dried. ஆழ் மனம் is the deep mind, the part below reasoning, and the last line puts every தடம் there rather than in memory proper — so the English has to go down past thinking to reach the same place. என்றும் falls three times, on the question, the soil and the mind, which lets the poem ask and answer in one word.
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