Hazards of Hindsight
For a moment
forget hindsight
prudence and reconsideration
Hindsight dry-cleans your speech
Forget caution and correction
don’t render me speechless with your reason –
all I want from you is a quick artless response
that knocks judgement off into history’s oblivion
only then I'll get a pure no, a simple yes from you
not the elusive past, I wasn’t a part of
To make any sense of history
I need an artless response
In its freshness
I can see better
the peanuts enclosed in the sturdy shell
the fresh oil in its ripened seeds.
.
by Monika Kumar
from Samalochan, 2012
translation by author