She longed
to put on a hat
The Moon and the Sun
gifted it to her

Alone at first
Then in small groups
the tiny birds were coming
humming a song on Holiness,
‘Woman with a Hat, Mattisse’

They drew invisible lines around her head
And flew in flocks with glee
But she’s smiling mysteriously,
as if in a mirrored frame.

She had two births
First, a memory of a life
That never lived
Second, life on canvas
with the feeling of being alive.
First memory
Of life that she really lived.

But it was sceptical,
when you remember what you lived
It’s like a fallacy
The more you remember,
the more you transform.

The second impression
On canvas, safer she’s
to become a self-portrait
Lived as an exercise in illusions
But On canvas
As a technique to impose realities

She’s looking at everyone.
Like a portrait
She had to gaze at every spectator
She faced the evils
like an innocent flower
Who can defend itself weaponless

She looked irrespectively
at all the brawlers
She was not history.
But looked at those who would become history.

A bird sings in the voice of chirping life
To Make even a leaf habitable
She too adorned the audience forever
with her eternal blissful smile.

*Translation of Malayalam poem
“അവള്‍കാണുന്നത്” byഎം കെ ഹരികുമാർ
Translated by Prameela Tharavath
*Based on French Painter Henri Matisse’s painting
“Woman With a Hat “(1905)