Classic Poem

Purananuru 295

There, in the very middle
of battle-camps
that heaved like the seas,

pointing at the enemy
the tongues of lances,
new-forged and whetted,

urging soldiers forward
with himself at the head
in a skirmish of arrow and spear,

cleaving through
an oncoming wave of foes,
forcing a clearing,

he had fallen
in that space
between armies,
his body hacked to pieces:

when she saw him there
in all his greatness,
mother's milk flowed again
in the withered breasts
of this mother
for her warrior son
who had no thought of retreat.