The Reckoning

Renowned poetess Kamala Das (Kamala Surayya; Madhavikutty) died last May at the age of 75.

One year later, Jeet Thayil remembers her in this 20-line memorial sonnet.

She woke early and read a sura about the Day of Terrors,

The Day of Severance, the Day of the Inevitable,

When one blast shall be blown on the trumpet,

And the earth and the mountains shall be upheaved

And crushed into dust at a single crushing,

And the woe that must come suddenly shall suddenly

Come. On that day, she read, ye shall be brought before Him,

And he whose book is given to him in his right hand shall say

To his friends, “Take ye it and read: such is my reckoning,”

But he whose book is given in his left hand shall say,

“Oh that my book had never been given me, and that I

Had never known my reckoning.” She thought,

I know in which hand my book will be given to me.

And she lifted both hands and watched for the tremor.

So when the phone rang and a voice asked permission

To anthologize her poems, she heard a noise like the sea

Crashing against the apartment’s high windows,

And she said, What one misses about love is the yielding.

I miss the yielding, Kamala said, and put down the phone,

And in a week, or less, in four days or five, she was gone.