Linguistic laments

I am writing furiously, yet words fail me

Repeatedly, my thoughts tend to derail me

As I search in vain for the right English expression

And my mind in a spirit of transgression

Jumps from my adopted language to the one

That pervades my soul in subliminal recognition…

 

It is true that proficiency I have acquired

In a language not my own to quench the desire

To be active on a wider platform, expand my horizons

Yet, when faced with the need to express emotions

Rich idioms and proverbs from my brain’s recesses appear

In Hindi, my mother-tongue, loud and clear..

 

I am faced with a dilemma, a strange predicament

Where I know how to express perfectly my sentiment

Except it happens to be in the wrong language

Literal translation does not provide the same leverage

To what I wish to say, it gets frustrating

As I navigate between the two languages, waiting

For the writer’s block to disappear somehow

To get my chain of thoughts back, to allow

Me to go back to thinking in the language that’s now mine

English is a sensational cocktail, Hindi is old wine

To be enjoyed at leisure, occasionally

While it rests in the closet of my heart subconsciously

**

English forms my metaphorical wings to help me fly

Hindi represents my roots, deeply grounded under the sky

My wings have taken flight in realms scientific and literary

My roots have soothed my soul troubled and weary

To describe my life completely I would need

To express myself in both languages indeed!