Night of the Scorpion -- Nissim Ezekiel

Guest poem sent in by Gaurav Khanna

(Poem #714) Night of the Scorpion "I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours of steady rain had driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison -- flash of diabolic tail in the dark room -- he risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the Name of God a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One. With candles and with lanterns throwing giant scorpion shadows on the sun-baked walls they searched for him; he was not found. They clicked their tongues. With every movement the scorpion made his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said. May he sit still, they said. May the sum of evil balanced in this unreal world against the sum of good become diminished by your pain. May the poison purify your flesh of desire, and your spirit of ambition, they said, and they sat around on the floor with my mother in the centre. the peace of understanding on each face. More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, more insects and the endless rain. My mother twisted through and through groaning on a mat. My father, sceptic, rationalist, trying every curse and blessing, powder, mixture, herb, and hybrid. He even poured a little paraffin upon the bitten toes and put a match to it. I watched the flame feeding on my mother. I watched the holy man perform his rites to tame the poison with incantation. After twenty hours it lost its sting." "My mother only said: Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children." -- Nissim Ezekiel

This is a pretty stark poem; albeit relieved to an extent by the display of
maternal emotion at the end. Doesn't rhyme at all, unlike most of Ezekiel's
poems I have read, but it does have a beauty when read with the right
inflection. I studied this for my 10th grade exams and along with Frost's
"Stopping by Woods" and Wordsworth's "Daffodils", it'll stay with me for a
long time. I'd love to hear what you guys think of it and any bio info you
have on Ezekiel.

regards,
gaurav

Links:

We've run two of Ezekiel's 'Indian English' poems on Minstrels:

Poem #516, 'The Patriot'
Poem #579, 'The Professor'

Between the two of them they cover Ezekiel's biography and some background
on his poetry.