Audio of the original Kannada poem:
The Rabbit and the Moon (ಮೊಲ ಮತ್ತು ಚಂದ್ರ)
The moon came over the mountain
he climbed the mountain and left
Here, right here, he stood
he was there silently
he looked like he was running
he moved like he was coming down
The moon left over the mountain
he climbed the mountain and came
He was playing in a silence,
washing his face-of-light
a moon-dot was on his forehead –
it was a summer’s night
The moon came over the mountain
he climbed the mountain and left
He rose from the clouds’s thisside
he slept between the clouds
waking, suddenly, he turned
into a child that laughed
The moon left over the mountain
he climbed the mountain and came
the moon came over the mountain
he saw a rabbit kid
Quietly – slowly – he said come,
he gently picked it up
(the wind swung in the sky)
rock, my darling, rock –
isn’t the world a sight!
The traveller came over the mountain
he climbed the mountain and left
in the terrace of the sky above
is the rabbit with the moon
Afterword:
Not too long ago, I published a translation of Vaidehi’s well-known poem, ‘ತಿಳಿದವರೇ … ಹೇಳಿ (You who clearly know … tell me)“, in which she professes to knowing much more about ತಿಳಿಸಾರು (tiḷisaaru: ~ clear saaru) than poetry. While that poem is obviously satirically self-deprecating and the poem’s conceit is clearly feminist, I am actually inclined to agree with Vaidehi’s assessment – speaking strictly in terms of “lyric poetry”. What I mean is: very few of Vaidehi’s poems would qualify as lyric poems, which are the kind of poems I like best (but which are, especially in today’s modernist or post-modernist or whatever times, perhaps the hardest kind of poems to write). From what I can tell, most of Vaidehi’s poems are “free verse” poems – almost prose-like actually. (This isn’t to say that Vaidehi is capable of writing lyric poetry – the sensitive nature of her prose is proof that she has the necessary sensibility.)
In any case, this particular poem is one of Vaidehi’s few lyrical poems (in that it moves to a rhythm). Perhaps the poem allows for a deeper reading, but from what I can tell, it seems to be a poem for children – which, then, explains its rhythmic nature. It’s also why I chose to sing rather than recite it.
Kannada To English 