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ORIYA POETRY
MANORANJAN DASH
AN ELEGY
Which bird's call-note
possessed me?Do you know it
at its time of return
to another guise:
wings of marble,granite claws and beak
and flights,speckles of memories.The kingfisher calls.
For whose death are you responsible?One among many bends
of the river Daya,
the mossy stone under its slow moving water
and in its crevices
fish,legend,sands like history
and a floor of rotten leaves.In the neck-deep water
if you look this way
a narrow strip of sunshine
where prophecy lies
like a twelve-cubit-span sword.In the neck-deep water
if you look that way
a small patch of cloud
drifts in like sobbings
and a small fish gets startled.In space
whose pointed gaze is this?
And does the river destroy
what it creates?
Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
PABITRA MOHAN DASH
THE HOUSE
Sprinkling my impure blood
I have purified my yard
I have arranged rows of wick-lights,
bright with sin,
I have made my nightmares stand,
bowing their heads as arches
and have gone on pouring
the welcome song of liquid silence
from my broken heart.My house only awaits
the touch of your feet
to be glorified.I have kept with me
the storm of sighs,
my half-hidden moon
and a tearful rain
so that there will be no omen
on your good wishes for us.
Do I dare to name
this house of pretension
as a temple?
The only thing is that
on the touch of your feet
my house shall be glorified.With the delay in your arrival,
the thatch of the house
has started flying off
and the wall collapsing.
The roaring forty has already
announced your non-arrival.That this house is yours,
the ominous hawk has
gone past, declaring it.It is to your house
that you should have come.
Why should I be anxious
at all?
Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
A Varnamala Visualization