TRANSLATED FROM THE TAMIL BY DR. VIJAYAGANESH
POEM 1
Furiously spreading night creeper
Fearing the wash of the river
Hides in the darkness of thick trees.
Thousand eyes of the visiting stars
Long for the nod of motionless leaves.
Longing oozes out becoming a moon that whimpers
Scattered flood of light
Gets onto the ferry, jumps out of it
And brims with distress.
While milk flows down the sky
This earth turns a charred wood.
I become a firefly hiding in the eyes of an owl
At day break the sky being blind
Froths only in dreams.
POEM 2
At dusk on the day of heavy rain
Like blue sky
Brightly lies the Solitude.
In this unfrequented desolate place
The whirl of mirage that comes on its own
Is lost now.
As I myself left alone
Sorrow climbs onto the hatred of solitude shouting
Out of the glass window
A sparrow that took shelter from rain flies back to its nest
Carrying me as well in some direction.
Now in this room
Alone laments one
But not me.
POEM 3
While waking up from the sleep filled with cruel dreams
The earth turns on its sides.
One fine morning ant goes rolling
The lost balance of its movement.
When Time shatters into pieces like a glass toy
Tears laughing like pearls
The particles of air stretch its bangle worn hands;
Drinks down all sorrows and takes a breath.
A few blue sparrows ask,
Still how many sorrows would happen
In the altar of long lasting silence
That sits on the bank of the massive river of time,
As they fly with wings uncertain of going back to their nest.
POEM 4
Like the wail of a street dog during winter nights
I scream on seeing
The morning dews in the pulp of burst cotton.
As tears of my colour changed dreams float
In its pale smile,
I feel myself to be a red-black bee
That is confined into it.
As memories like wriggling worms crawl
Sun rays gradually come out.
Hungry squirrel still
Gnawing the unburst cotton.
When the contentment groan heard from its abdomen
Reach your ears on the opposite bank of the stolen river,
The heat of the summer begins to spread
In this land as well.
POEM 5
During the day owl lost its direction
Produces midnight song
On the time past midnight when
Memories of Dead old dream that we lost dry up.
As a large blind eagle falls groaning
In the small drop of time
When stars and moon blossomed all over the space,
On account of separation
It has become night and day,
In the sky above the land
That lost the place of meeting
Now there is no moon
No light
Only darkness continues to spread.
POEM 6
Palm leaves flutter
Galaxy with no beginning no end
Cools down like milk
Mirage that runs in between
Stares at the opposite bank.
A bird that lost its vision
Gropes the bottom of the unfathomable ruined well.
The goads whirl under the feet
Of people leaving the village.
Though the ties are severed long back
Like the flutter of fish washed ashore,
The heat of local town that wanders from thirst
Froths in dreams intensifying the sorrow.
Also, Read The Death of Mallika and Other Poems by Devdas Chhotray, Translated from The Oriya by Bibhu Padhi and Minakshi Rath and published in The Antonym:
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