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Kabita: MY POEMS

The Golden Eagle

(Having seen a Chinese movie)

I have promised to break the arrow, dear...

I shall have to climb the huge

red-eyed mountain in the night

crossing it I shall have to reach

the nest of the golden eagle in

the rocky valley

A blue zigzag piece of cloth

extends to the horizon-

on it there are seven vermillion-red

chiseled peaks in which

blue stars hum

Ah!

at what barely visible distance

the evening wind’s whistle is heard?

what glittering beckon

with their flute-like magical notes?

Dear...

tether your white mare

whose whiteness is like that of the dripping snow

at stark red noon

In the veins and vessels of my heart

in the cold expanse of loneliness

sits hatching in every moment

a golden eagle

***

[Translated from Assamese by Prof. Prodeep Khataniar]

The hijol* tree’s shade

Her fault was she had been to the river to look at herself

The god of the river took her down to the water and that’s that

The one who jumped in to bring her from the water

Had a boat of ejar* wood and his calves too were ejar-hued

Leaving boat and oar   meandering under water

The light house of truth glimmered in the distance easy as a straight line

Exhausted swimming as they got out of water on to land

Under the shade of the hijol by the river they looked at their eyes

The colour of breath under water was green   on land it’s like land

The  shade of the hijol hides all unwritten annals of the earth

***

* The Indian oak, Barringtonia acutangula.

* A species of timber tree, Lagerstroemia reginae.

(Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Pradip Acharya)

Shivering Sprouts

... So vitally alive

Like the sculptured foreplay

of an eager couple

Throbbing between moments in the wind

A fresh red sprout of a sapling Uri-ām

at the water’s edge

At the roots of the sapling

where, from this side of the river

at a precise angle

you see that unearthly sight

from there till the middle of the river

a root slithers like a Dhunduli-phėti*

Where, a while from now

a drenched maiden that came swimming

will trip and faint

After another while

at the root of the sapling Uri-ām

the sculpture will be sculpted

till the sun drowns

through the horns of the homing buffaloes

Down the mustard fields

through reeds and sedges

down the thick woods

the wary eyes discern

the fresh red sprout

of the sapling Uri-ām

On the other bank of the river

where the road diverges to the woods

the steadily closing lids of two eyes

Will throb between moments

till the buffalo bells recede into the distances

and merged with the silence

***

* Uri-ām : bescoffia javanica

* Dhunduli-phėti : Coelognathus radiata

(Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Pradip Acharya)

A poem of nothingness

You are restless and fidgety

looking for the definition of nothingness

Please listen—

taking a piece of paper

draw a zero

then looking at it

start seeking your required definition

Have you got it

In a blank paper drawing a line

you created a picture which is like

the full moon in your mirror

how can it be a zero like the dark moon

The picture of the mist is repeatedly lost in nothingness

it again becomes illuminated in lines of light in its fullness

You saw nothingness long ago with your third eye

you knew and understood and remembered

again and again that nothingness

In the endless splendour of nothingness you

unknowingly had embraced nothingness one day

Unknown to me a zero is hanging from a zero

my shadow less shadow is imprisoned in that zero

***

 [Translated from Assamese by Prof. Prodeep Khataniar]

New Year

The one who knows, knows, that time and space are one

We, the ones who are unaware, divide it at our convenience

Hearing my grave voice (much like that of a college lecturer)

My wife smiles at me, with a touch of irony

Anything goes

How does it matter

Maybe so

Maybe not

For, I know the rock-mounting hill-climber

On a self-quest, he’ll warm his hands tomorrow in the morning sun

***

(Translated from Assamese by Prof. Bibhash Choudhury)

The abstract star

At one time everything slips into the past

Let me take it for granted

that I am flying in the sky

over my head     below my feet

beginning from the fingers of

my outspread hands the endless sky

The sky of the night of the dark moon

the enchanting endless sky

of the night of the dark moon

“Do not start your journey on the night of the dark moon”

The known warning of my mother’s simple faith

yet I was born in such a dark night

she hides thing truth from me

The star gazing at which I am flying

in enchanting sky of this night

is dead is it’s sky in the same present

yet it is living for me

it is the living abstract star of the projected truth

At one time everything slips into the past

Am I going or flying

gazing at the star

just assume by

my own reasoning

What a pleasure in making assumption

many a journey begins with such assuming

what is the end of all these journeys

the abstract star of my assumed sky

***

[Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Prodeep Khataniar]                

Light and Shade

The moon beyond the bounds wakens

at evening, to the beat of drums

squatting at the rim of my arms

comes traipsing along to the barn

from the meadows down winding furrows

a couple of waves from a yellowing sea

Heavy winds, heavier paths

heaving shocks, grandee’s bliss

In the silence where all roads run mad

the insects wail in a rhapsody

as I trade in awake of a slithering cobra

of moonless dark and its

glowworm eyes

but unbeknown to me

a disembodied shape begins to follow me

In the sky floats scutched-cotton clouds

the moon that hides softly or shines

she reached out to the mist-drenched

ends of my hair streaming loose

The shadowy form teases my shadow

and then surges forward leaving it gaping

and then, like comrades in arms

will fall back and step in tune

My shadow shier in the wind, goes numb in the cold

in the hiss and rustle of fallen leaves

my shadow feels the shiver that runs

from my soles to clamber up and seize my heart

Often in passion the snake twins round the shadow

it grants and snap, the snake bites and on its bow

bloods congeals like ice in pain

it goes dark blue, collapses and its shadow enters my wind-pipe

spreads in my blood stream

I faint and squat right in the middle of the field

and, at the trundling dance of a remote will-ó-the-wisp

the wails of ghost of corpses close in on me

Suddenly a caressing stray wind

shakes the sheaves in shocks on my shoulder

and the patchy white clusters of my mind

is surely dispelled

all clouds gone, from the sky streams

down on my path, moonlight

and the tears of the moon

***

 (Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Pradip Acharya)

Phagun*

Quiet and forlorn

The fragrant yellow mustard pollens

Spread in the air of the noonday flute

Frenzied in the fragrance

A school of colourful fish

Through twigs and leaves

Of straight slender trees

Trample over the flowering mustard patch

Like a lightning strike

Yet phagun knows

The charm of flowering

On a still quiet night

At the edge of the moonlit heath Winged angels flit to and fro

As their wings flap

the fallen mustard blossoms

begin to breathe

***

*Phagun : Early Spring

(Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Pradip Acharya)

Speech

Is there any word

which is beyond word

speech which is beyond speech

Irony in the beginning

The pen I use to write

the words of my poems

is the same pen for listing

grocery items to buy

Yes

I have named this poem

‘Speech’ and

not ‘Words’

What is there in that

bank of word or

in this bank

‘This bank’ ‘that bank’

or ‘this river’ in between

are they just waterless words

Ideas and language

brain and heart

I temporarily take back

the ‘and’ in between

this ‘I’ itself at the end

Yet

when addressed “My Goldie”

my second son replies still

“Yes, my father”

***

[Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Prodeep Khataniar]

Water-born

Tearing the water, grows on the water

The poetic scenes of the restless waves

By welcoming it and having seated it

On the bow of the boat,

My boat moves upstream to the paddy fields

In the stroke of the oar show off

Pani-paruwas* Elengs* Ilihis*

Jump apart like grasshoppers

Hearing your laughter?

The picture of the fully grown paddy

Waiting, looking at us,

How unbearable!

Go

Reap the paddy

***

*Pani-paruwa: A kind of water insect.

*Eleng: A kind of flat white fish of medium size.

*Ilihi: The hilsa fish.

[Translated from the Assamese by poet Ajit Barua]

The baya’s nest

1.

The mist bathes your unencumbered body

The mist of my eyes

***

2.

Before the fruits ripen and fall

The field is green for all

The rest is memories of the green

Of light and shade

***

3.

At your roof you put a pot

To catch moonlight and star-flowers

In the sleepless night

Your cold tears rain down the pot

***

4.

How do I enter your room

Without so much as your leave

However do I start a song

Without a little sorrow in my lips

If I do not have a heart like yours

However do I enter your heart

***

5.

Through the lonely night-bus window

running along with me distantly

There is the dew drenched moon

Because love is not just for oneself

I remember you constantly

In this damp dusty night.

***

6.

With undeviating wish

You flung open the door

And my wishes followed in its wake

We are climbing the hill

With the eagerness of dreams

you said

After a while suddenly I woke

you again held my hand smiling

and said

We are moving ahead

With the eagerness of wishes

Taller than even dreams

***

7.

Whatever you think is a dream

is really a dream

Without even your thinking

it’s a moment’s fantasy

in your consciousness

***

8.

When eyes don’t look

the lids close

so much formality

to call you

just this once

***

9.

When we are face to face again

however would I address you

Lonely as the way to the temple

a resounding long intimate path

and since we lost the way

we are strangers

If I have to trudge down

the road of memory again

however would I face you

***

10.

Because the current always changes

the river is always a river

Because you have not remained you

for me it’s only memories now

While changing always like the river

had you but remained you   always

***

11.

At the hour of the meadowy trudge back home

down the bridle path of dusk

a pair of swans circle overhead   all the way

Through the paddy stalks by the lake

down the forlorn path of the gamble grove

holding hands with early moonlight

the tales of dusk flit about like crickets

The heaving sheaves at the carrying pole

of umpteen varieties of paddy

light up the bridle path

and fill the air with echoes

***

12.

This importunate moment

Enlivened by the lost tune

Beyond the melody

Is entirely for you

Your songs are for you

For me only the willed remembrance

***

13.

Dawn at the end of night like rain at the end of thirst

whatever is gold-hued by the sun is a heavenly flower

With growing thirst the meadowy damsels have come of age

With colours on the flower’s cheeks the fruit ripens golden

Golden fruit’s a host of golden waves from mid sea

Where burns the crest of our desire

***

14.

The clay doll had no life

That’s why running after crickets was my hobby

Once having lost the way in the woods

Thorns mauled and tore my heart

Forbidding my flitting about like crickets

Slowly I fell in love with the clay doll

What quietly glowing beauty is yours

***

(Translated from Assamese by Prof.  Pradip Acharya)