Benegal, 1779-1859
The fields flame with it, endless, blue
as cobra poison. It has entered our blood
and pulses up our veins
like night. There is no other color.
The planter’s whip
splits open the flesh of our faces,
a blue liquid light trickles
through the fingers. Blue dyes the lungs
when we breathe. Only the obstinate eyes
refuse to forget where once the rice
parted the earth’s moist skin
and pushed up reed by reed,
green, then rippled gold
like the Arhiyal’s waves. Stitched
into our eyelids, the broken dark,
the torches of the planter’s men, fire
walling like a tidal wave
over our huts, ripe charred grain
that smelled like flesh. And the wind
screaming in the voices of women
dragged to the plantation,
feet, hair, torn breasts.
In the worksheds, we dip our hands,
their violent forever blue,
in the dye, pack it in great embossed chests
for the East India Company.
Our ankles gleam thin blue from the chains.
After that night
many of the women killed themselves.
Drowning was the easiest.
Sometimes the Arhiyal gave us back
the naked, swollen bodies, the faces
eaten by fish. We hold on
to red, the color of their saris,
the marriage mark on their foreheads,
we hold it carefully inside
our blue skulls, like a man
in the cold Paush night
holds in his cupped palms a spark,
its welcome scorch,
feeds it his foggy breath till he can set it down
in the right place,
to blaze up and burst
like the hot heart of a star
over the whole horizon,
a burning so beautiful you want it
to never end.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Note
Paush: name of a winter month in the Bengali calendar
The planting of indigo was forced on the farmers of Bengal, India, by the British, who exported it as a cash crop for almost a hundred years until the peasant uprising of I860, when the plantations were destroyed.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, “Indigo,” from Leaving Yuba City: Selected Poems (New York: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1997)
Indeagó
Benegal, 1779-1859
Lonraíonn sé sna goirt, gan chríoch, chomh gorm
le nimh an chobra. Tá sé sa bhfuil againn
agus cuislíonn inár bhféitheacha
ar nós na hoíche. Níl aon dath eile ann.
Scoilteann fuip
an phlandálaí an cneas ar ár n-aghaidh,
sileann solas gorm lonrach
trí na méara. Dathaíonn gorm na scamhóga
nuair a análaímid. Ní dhéanfaidh na súile daingne
dearmad ar an rís a d’eascair tráth den saol
as craiceann tais na cré
gas ar ghas á bhrú aníos,
glas, órga ansin mar chuilithíní
ar an Arhiyal. Fuaite i gcaipíní
na súl, an dorchadas briste,
tóirsí lucht an phlandálaí, tine
mar rabharta a chlúdaigh
ár mbotháin, grán aibí dubh dóite
is boladh feola uaidh. Agus an ghaoth
ag scréachaíl i nguthanna na mban
á dtarrac chun na plandála,
cosa, gruaig, brollach stróicthe.
Sna seideanna oibre, tumaimid ár lámha
ar lí shíorghorm an fhoréigin
sa dath, á phacáil i gcófraí móra cabhartha
do Chomhlacht na hIndia Thoir.
Ár murnáin chaola ag gormlonrú ó na slabhraí.
Nuair a bhí an oíche sin thart
is iomaí bean a chuir lámh ina bás féin,
á mbá féin ab áisiúla.
Uaireanta thugadh an Arhiyal thar n-ais dúinn
Na colainneacha nochta borrtha,
a n-aghaidh
ite ag éisc. Cloímid
leis an dearg, dath an tsáraí,
marc an phósta ar an gclár éadain,
á choinneáil go cúramach istigh
inár mblaosc ghorm, ar nós duine
le linn oícheanta fuara an gheimhridh
agus foscadh láimhe á thabhairt aige
do splanc, fáiltíonn roimh an ruadhó,
an splanc á cothú aige lena anáil cheoch
go leagtar síos san áit cheart í,
go lasann suas ina caor is pléascann
mar chroí loiscneach réalta
ar fud fhíor na spéire go léir,
dó chomh hálainn sin nár mhaith leat
go mbeadh aon deireadh leis.