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ORIYA POETRY
MAMATA DASH
THE HORIZON
Shall we,one day,
like a pair of sparrows
perched on a dunghill,
flap our wings and take off to the sky
or shall we just cruise along
on that white canoe far,far away?
The vessel of course
is without the steersman.
Let it.Why should we fear?
We two are here.The evening we have heard of since ages
is perhaps imminent.
Look,the skies no more advertise
their skill
of getting speckled
with a host of colours.
Only the birds let out an occasional twitter
lest they recede into complete muteness.
Not a wall,not a frame is here
where the wind could
playfully collide and giggle.
Not a bubble rises above the waters
which could hold us mirrored.
Only we two,
only we two are here.Shall I forget everything
at the advent of that evening?
Shall I forget my frolicsome plays,
my body wounded
in such playful moments,
the blood oozing from the body
the tears brewing within the blood
and the words
sprung from within those tears?Will Time too forget
to mend the broken bangles
and again put them where they were?
Can it really forget
to retrieve the lost ring
lodged within a fish?
Shall we turn into a couple of shadows
almost devoid of existence,yet conscious?Surely the silent experience
of the evening's arrival
will keep us entranced for sometime.
And then?
Will a pall of gloom descend?
Or shall we be able to realise
that the nightsky is as blue as ever
that the sun blazes as before,
that the murky night
is only conditioned
by our hallucination,our own hemisphere?But these Waters!
Deep blue, dense and fathomless
So charming,so alluring these waters!
Multi-hued shells,glowing pearls
and a variety of fish and other aquatics
have formed an unbrittle bond
all around here;
Can we unbind ourselves?
Can we?As long as waters remain
fears lurk
thirst and avarice tempt
with their fierce spell.Do not therefore go away,please
stay on this time,
inhere my agonies,
my emotions,my beseechings
and remain in these waters,
Son of God,
be crucified again
not in yourself
but within my body
seething with passion.And then?
Shall I have to travel alone?
How far?
Far away there, I can see the horizon:
so majestic,so marvellous.
But
is that the end?
Is this the end?
What a supernal void
pervades all around!
Am I that void:
motionless and limitless?
Translation:
Braja Kishore Das
PRAHARAJ SATYANARAYAN NANDA
THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU IS A MIRROR
The man in front of you is a mirror
Gaze at his eyes that sketch your image
As your eyes sketch his.No,a reflection is never a household thing
Which can be concealed in a box,
In the heart,in a mirror,in the skull or in trees and flowers.
Your image floats in a moving fan and from
The turning wheel a fish watches the arrowpoint
Although I know Death is dancing like the aerial roots
I pin rest of my days in your hairThe man in front of you is a mirror
Gaze at his eyes that sketch your image
As your eyes sketch his.In your eyes the cornfields and the sprawling clouds
The rivulets sketch different pictures
Do they know how things have been rolled into one
How cloud is not different from rivulet,
Rivulet from rock
Rock from mountain range
And Mother Earth
From that ocean is not separate also
The underlined words of the verse
Are not delinked from the sentence,
From inquiry and mind
And never the desires are different from grinding intellect.To such views eye appears as banian leaf
The left half of my body is different from the right
And the universe from the mirror
Roots and shoots from the tree and the claws from aerial roots
The fish from arrowpoint and so forth and so forth.The man in front of you is a mirror
And there is a mirror behind
Mirror to the left and mirror to the right and above and belowYour myriad images flash in dancing mirrors
And inside the mirror whose heart is it
Whose heart you are sketching
The thousand-handed,the million-footed,the billion-handed has one heart
That throws thousands of silver swords into the sky:
A sun of never-ending love and pricks.
Translation:
The poet.
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