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ORIYA POETRY
SATCHIDANANDA RAUTROY
SEA
My lost crown appears to me
as I face the sea,
watch it rolling about on the sands.And here my kingdom lies in shards,
enveloping me like a fortress
vast, and the limit's past.I forget myself, forgetting my first name
in time to become my second self,
turning a stranger to myself,
aloof and unfamiliar.
In the sky of my own self
I lose myself, losing too
my beginning and my end:
the truth of all that was or wasn't, and is.All words in an instant
turn wordless,
the word's past,
the unheard of what is heard.
All sounds seem meaningless,
the quest for all meaning futile.
Oh, if only these sounds unite
to become a signal, a sign or symbol
that would open
the entrance to a magical cave
at the touch of a finger...
To say, to know, to understand
Useless are these words and voices,
all the prepared prayers.
GODDESS DURGA
She is the one who slays me,
moment by moment,
In the grove of casuarinas,
by the shores of the sea,
She is the one who slays me,
in the very last act of the play.
With every single gut of my blood
is woven a pattern of immense terror.She is the one who slays me
hour by hour
In the white man's cemetry, or here.She is the one who pushes me
down the abyss of death.
Drawing me with the beak of her gaze,
She slays me with the strands of her smile
Here within, or in some lonely river isle,
In an abandoned citadel.And I live again, fall in love with her.
My Sumba-Nisumba existence only resembles her.
So she is a Goddess, for how else
Can she secure the slayed,
Death and love, with strings of slaughter;
Because love is death, her order ultimate.And receiving and giving seem complete
when each other we annihilate.She is the one who slays me
with eyes of murder,
Slays me in the cell of love,
Over a secret stairway,
or on some forgotten border,
For she is a Goddess:
truly she makes me hers
Under the pretense of worship,
each moment by moment
In every single act of the play.
Translation:
Jayanta Mahapatra
THE HOUSE
It's night.
It's cold.
What incredible fury of the blizzard!
An unbearable death
could break into this house
like a hungry wild cat.
Close the doors and windows.
It's better here,in this corner of the lounge
of this house.
The chairs,the carpet and the table do not talk.
Talk,sing,or do something
entirely petty and entirely unnecessary.
Or take a book, lie down,and do not speak.
Whatever you do today will have some meaning--
a mile-long sip from a teacup,
drawing in cigarette smoke and puffing it out,
the violin's sad melody--
whatever you do will have meaning,
whatever you do will clearly be better.Close the windows and doors.
Let's build a pathway paved with echoes,
away from solidified mysteries,
and arrive at the abode that's our very own.
There,in that abode,
a single moment holds
the reflection of our whole familiar world.
In light's green effulgence,
and in darkness that contains
God knows how many layers,
the blue sky descends in dewdrops
into the abyss of consciousness.Let's go then to the frontier
where all disquiet has ceased.
Let's go into the house
set apart for us
by God knows who.Some day,however,those terrible paws
will break into the house.
Its doors and windows will fall apart.
Electricity will be switched off.
It will embezzle every single certitude
of my universe
and,then,disappear for ever.
This moment will be the moment
of all-devouring time
that has no beginning,
and no end.
Look,the black wild cat
is here once again.
Translation:
Ramakanta Rath
MainDoor
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