Those that will never come to my home

Those that will never come to my home

I shall go to meet.

A river in flood will never come to my home.

To meet a river, like people,

I shall go to the river, swim a little, and drown.

Dunes, rocks, a mountain, a pond, endless trees, fields

will never come to my home.

I shall search high and low

for dunes, mountains, rocks—like people.

People who work all the time,

I shall meet, not during my leisure hours,

but as if it was an important job.

This first wish of mine I’ll hold on to,

like the very last one.

—Vinod Kumar Shukla,

‘Jo Mere Ghar Kabhi Nahi Ayenge’: translated by, Dilip Chitre/Daniel Weissbort