BANSHIDHAR
SARANGI
PLUCKING FLOWERS
The blossoming of a flower
is not the end-all of things,
a day will come when someone will pluck it
to place it somewhere only he knows.
It seems perfectly worthwhile for us
to guard it,staying hidden somewhere,
or else no one will ever know
when this stealer of flowers
would come in stealth
to complete his mission.
For plucking a flower
is not such an arduous task
nor is it such a priceless object
that we'd worry about it so much.
Whatever you might say,
there is some mystery
behind the plucking of a flower,
and who can deny the twofold role
that exists between the flower's blooming
and its dropping to earth?
It's unbecoming to keep a watch
for the flower to bloom,
for who can tell the moment of flowering?
Can one say
that it will rain for certain
when clouds spread across the sky?
It's not easy to assert
there is a last word for everything.
Simply raise both your palms upward,
may be you'll find a flower
falling from somewhere.
Translation:
Jayanta Mahapatra
WIND
The tree sifts the wind with its clutch.
The wind leafs in someone's ribs.
A skeleton lies at close range.
Dogs and jackals hold a mass dinner
on your bones.
The wind remains.Dogs and vultures
remain.A corpse lies abandoned.
Whose it is? Maybe some cow or ox.
In the distant bamboo grove rattles
the wind--the ruffian that beats down
leaves.
The hunter shot a bird dead with
his gun.Men were coming along the way.
The gushing blood dried up on the dead bird's
body.Who dried it up?
It is the wind.
Translation:
Harishankar Acharya
BHANUJI
RAO
FISH
Dawn,
like
the petal of drenched roses.
Six
nude bodies
furtively
glide forward
in
the practised motions of some dance,
rippling
the water's sleek body.
Slowly
they close in towards one another,
cutting
across the cries
of
the kingfisher and the kite.
They
move up, six torsos,
black
and naked,
deepening
the repose of snail and pristine toad.
And
now the net is wound,
rising
up
under
twelve greedy,watchful eyes;
threshing
bodies of mahseer and tiny fry,
brilliant
as the sun.
Translation:
Jayanta Mahapatra
BIBEK
JENA
POEM
When
you tell the flower
to
remain in bloom until you return,
I
will weep then for the first time,
and
the flower trembling in the spring breeze
will
wilt in the sun like a memory in blossom.
The
second weeping will take place
with
the corpse of the day's end,
waiting
for your return when the stricken flower
would
see the evening come in.
Then
perhaps,in the dark,the flower
would
quietly come down from the tree
and
be lost strangely somewhere.
I
will weep for the last time
when
in the blackest darkness
you
will not return.
Translation:
Jayanta Mahapatra
MainDoor
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