Returning to my own blog after years feels like a rebirth. As if I have pierced through many wombs and through many deaths to be here. It is deeply fascinating to think what does such long absence from one’s own blog signify. Is it as if someone has left halfway from an ongoing conversation? Is an abandoned blog for some time works like traces? Can one return to a conversation one has left long time ago. I wonder!!! May be it is through my poetry I will retrace some of the steps, if that is possible. Perhaps through my poems I can jump once again into my blog- river that was in a subterranean sense on the flow. We all know about the river mentioned by Heraclitus. I am trying to jump once again into it thinking it is the same river that I took a dip years ago.

I am so much grateful to you all for engaging with my poetry. As a matter of fact, due to the prodding of a friend and her active encouragement the blog came up years ago. As I return, I will take this opportunity to thank her for the support.

Much has happened during this period. Lots of old creative juice has dried up, new ones have started flowing. Meanwhile I published two volumes of Pablo Neruda’s poetry into Odia: his ‘Book of Questions (2011)’ and The Sea and the Bells’ (2014). Many years ago while I was a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, I fell in love with Neruda’s poetry. To read him in original, I taught myself Spanish in my spare time. But for the translation I depend both on the Spanish original as well as on their English translation.

A volume of my poetry in Odia – Mu Jebe Nathibi (When I am no more)- was published in 2011. Once again the poetry embodies my mediation on our fragility, our finitude, and our struggle with relationship. I like the title of the volume. But my mother who is 84 does not like the title. She thought it excessively melancholic!!!

As I publish this, a new volume of my poetry in Odia would be published this month (August 2014). The title is- Ranapare Janha (The Moon on Stilts). I am sure my Mother will like the title.

Here are some poems from the forthcoming volume.

In love, again

You are a green fish

I am bottomless water

Here and now, and forever

Our lives are together

Our stories are entwined.

In your colorful mirror

You summon

Images of our lost glances

Glow of patience

Kisses of seaweed

And the marks of your inimitable body

On a painted Persian carpet

I carry with me

Nights of swimming stars

The ceaseless throbbing

Inside the pearl

Crystals of darkness

And layers of wind

Caught in birds’ wings

We live like this

Sometimes together

Sometimes separate

But together

We wipe away

Civilization’s blots

You are restless

I dance like a wave

You remain still

I grow fragile

Sometimes

You are bottomless water

And I am a green fish

Shooting through it

 

(Translated from Odia by the poet

 

 

Two poems on Rain

(Rain-I)

 

I never met the rain like this

So quiet, so Buddha-like,

No pomp; no procession

No arrogance; no excess

It displays that much

Necessary to herald its quiet presence

“I am here now

I may not be around after a while”

This much rain wants to say.

Late into the night

I spent many hours with the rain

No intimate embrace

No body-shaking kisses

Only that much

Necessary for experiencing a touch

As if someone’s embrace

Concentrating on a point

An arrow’s tip seeking a touch

Today I feel as if

I am as much a stone

As I am a running stream

Rain: I have many questions to ask you today

(Rain –II)

A glass window

Separates me and the Rain

Rain stares at me

I return the look

But cant see it clearly.

When I look at the rain

It appears without a body

Only sound and sound, I see,

But when I hear it’s pattering

I clearly see its body and flesh.

I think the rain looks at me

But the meaning of its look

Remains unknown

Mysterious to me, forever

(A rough rendering from Odia by the poet)

 
Do you still have
Some of my words with You?
May be…who knows….
 
Some words lost their way
On the unknown streets of Kathmandu
Some got drowned in Sukhna’s water
A bunch of them felt breathless
In Delhi’s intolerable dust storm 
Some with dreams of reincarnation
Stirred the yellow sun under the heaps of dry leaves
Some words melted into the doha of Kabir
Some went jumping into the jungle
Like musk deers.
 
When we undressed, naked, face to face
Where were my words?
Were they trembling, ecstatic or
Mere silent spectators….
When we were separate
Were they gasping for life, disjointed
Or a broken bridge…..
 
When I turn silent
Where do my words go?
Riding on white horses
Unfurling the flags of my destiny
Gallop into a distant horizon

Now I cannot see anything.
 
Do you still have
Some of my words with you?
On a moonless night
Place them on canoes made out of stars
Make  them float on the river
Who knows
Where their destinies will take them….
 
(My new poem in Oriya: Just a rough rendering in English)

What remains tomorrow

When I am no more?

Buds, fish, grasshoppers, cricket, and fruits

Trousers, slippers, bicycles and empty cigarette packets

Dried ink in a pen on the shelf

A gecko in love with the electric bulb

Pages of torn book fluttered by a fan overhead

An old chair, a witness to

Many moments of helplessness

And defeat in time’s game of dice.

What remains tomorrow

When I am no more?

A dense forest of amri bushes

That scares me

A sweet, faint song

From a nearly toothless mouth

An eternally restless swan in the river

Swayed neither by death nor by the state.

What remains tomorrow

When I am no more?

The sun never appears

In the dreams

Of an amorous woman,

For it is scared of drowning

In a sea of longing.

 

O my friend the night,

Go on endlessly.

Do not wipe the kohl from

Sleepy eyes,

For the uncertainty of the sky

And time will choke you

In the broad light of day.

 

No matter if

Gangasiuli flowers

Drop on a bed of dew.

May the night birds delight

In the fragrance of baula flowers.

O Night

Who enjoys eternal youth!

Do not start

At the sound of horse hooves

Approaching from the east.

Midnight.

The pale moon

In a sky crowded with stars.

The footsteps of time echo

In the flapping of bats’ wings.

 

Poetry touched me

When I was returning, alone.

Her touch the vibration

In iron, in nerves,

Like hot breath in twilight.

 

Poetry moved me

Not like a storm

But with the heavy silence

Of betrayal, of faith lost.

She pointed at

Helpless words and dreams

Afloat on the moat

Between you and me

And the bruised man

Waiting endlessly for her.

In a magic mirror

She showed me

My ancestors:

Sarala Das and Jagannath Das.

 

When I return home alone

Poetry is waiting for me,

To tie ankle bells on my feet,

Place the sacred bells in my hands,

And whisper,

 ‘Is there anyone in this world but me

You can call your own?

And just then

The white lips of the moon

Emerge from the cluster of stars.

Who writes the address

In black words printed

Across the dusky sky?

Who puts letters

Full of glittering words

Into blue envelopes?

 

The green dusk makes its way,

Climbing the steps of Shravan,

Along the empty roads,

Drenching time’s body,

The deserted river island,

The banyan tree,

Ridges of rice fields,

The cowherd boy

Driving his cattle before him,

The oil lamp burning weakly

Under the invalid’s bed.

 

The night’s face blossoms

In the lily,

Its star-trimmed plaits

Fall across the city’s heart.

If you press your face

Against the window

You see the map of the city

Unfolding itself.

 

There is water everywhere—

In the bazaars,

The slums,

The courts.

Everything seems the same,

Has the same depth and height,

Just as it was

At the beginning of time.

 

Today I am drenched

In the driving rain,

My hands and feet,

All the holes in my heart,

Are numb with the cold.

The carefree rain

Always arrives like this,

Suddenly.

Does it bother to find out

If I have the time to spare?

My asthmatic uncle’s pain,

My promise

To take my

Neighbour’s daughter

Out for a stroll,

All is forgotten.

Really,

The rain cares for no one.

Little girls and boys

In the village

Dance

The dance of frogs.

 

They are

Desires surrendered,

Salvation longed for

By ancestors

And the generations to come.

 

No carapace covers our longings.

Sometimes

They sprawl

Like simba creepers

Or else

lie coiled

In rooms not to be entered.

The sky having

Gathered them in

With a crooked stick,

Turned itself

Into a woman heavy with desire.

The rains descended

On the cremation ground,

On the holy fire of a puja,

Like buried memories.

 

Like a circus troupe

The rains pitched a silver tent.

In its rooms played

Shells and sankucha fish,

Dreams not yet seen,

Helpless dotage,

The tortoise of white death.

 

When the seasons age,

The rains encircle

Time long gone,

Everyone’s longings revealed.

Set down now

The summary of life,

Work out the unsolved riddles,

Leave the last word to the rain

And see how it sucks you

And your riddles

Into a delta of indifference.

 

Death: the face of a terrible thirst.

Like a pet cat

It goes up and down

Steps not to be trodden.

Whoever it touches with its cold fingers

Turns into a handful of ash.

 

It’s everywhere:

In black sunflower seeds,

Uniforms displayed

In shop glass cases,

Nests of baia birds

Which have dropped off

Palm trees stripped of their crowns,

In the hooting of owls,

The mouths of rivers,

Torn wires, broken reflections,

On everyone’s shoulders,

In the pores of their skin,

The eyes of blinking stars,

In the arrogance of intellect,

It softly calls someone

Who has missed the bus

To the harbour.

At other times

It rolls

Like an earthworm

In turgid rain water.

 

The rain: death’s agent.

It casts a spell on everyone,

Through transparent filter paper,

Flowers of stone,

And the sweet voice of green leaves.

It slices through crops of flesh

Like a sharpened scythe,

Scales of fish and snake,

Shells of snails,

Lie scattered in a muddy expanse.

 

Little children

Dancing like clouds

Leap from one mountain

To another.

Smeared with mud

They land

In the empire of the grown-up.

 

The rain

Like a tearful mother

Blocking their way,

Brings them back

To her own courtyard,

Where they play,

Turning into little hail stones

In the palms of her hands.

Many dejected hearts

Like night, like snow,

Lie congealed in my room

Amidst abandoned memory.

 

I wish to roll on the ground naked,

To break all barriers,

To jump like the setting sun,

Staining the floor of my room with blood.

 

The room and furniture feel lazy, tired

Of waiting.

From the archives of time

Something rises

Like a drunkard,

Leaving behind home, railway platform,

Like cold darkness.

The huge bell of time

Gets dragged on the floor of my room.

 

II

 

Where did you get stuck?

In what sands of a cruel civilization

Did your feet sink?

Your body, with its horns,

Who chained it in fetters?

 

Like a snake

You slithered into the cave of my bones.

One hears wailing inside the cave.

You are threading flowers of bones,

Moving like a tired river

Within the spiral of the cave.

 

III

 

Like a gush of dark wind

You rush into my room,

Split my entire being

With the sword of lightening

And fill my palm with the saliva of kisses.

 

There is a body within a body.

A body caught up in tradition.

You lift the ghost of a secret sex

And bang it on the floor.

A chunk of autumnal sky descends.

Kasatandi flowers, pieces of flesh,

Or the seeds of a tree of passion

Get scattered inside you.

You fly like a crazy bird

Through the blood of my veins.

 

IV

 

What do you stare at

In fear?

The loneliness in my room is gone.

Caught in the net,

The eyes, the busy hands, the spider of memory,

Waiting for your impenetrable body,

And remembering the song

That your body sang in this room

Years ago.

Stars descended to

The river Chhinda

Down the ladder of the paddy fields,

Then turned into a shoal of fish, swimming,

The river water an opaque mirror.

 

Who is weeping on the river bank,

Bent with the years

Of facing the ups and downs of life?

 

Once Padma came to the river bank,

Fresh as the autumn sky.

Years ago she fell in love here.

She was loved by the dense night,

The fog, the tamarind tree of her dreams.

 

Last year

All those sweet memories were shattered.

On the bank of the river Chhinda

Her bangles were broken on the stones.

She lost her voice.

Leaves of the chakunda tree piled up on her body.

 

Who is weeping on the river bank,

Bent with the years

Of facing the ups and downs of life?

 

All the memories and dreams

Of the body and the mind

Transform into stories

On the bank of the river Chhinda.

Many years ago

Someone fell in love with Phula Dei.

Before the grain in her womb ripened,

She was throttled to death on the bank of the river.

Word spread

That Phula had turned into a witch,

Roaming the paddy fields with a lamp in her hands.

People close to us

Turn into ghosts and witches,

Roaming the paddy fields and the river banks.

 

Evening turns into night,

Stars get tired of swimming,

The river water turns into a transparent mirror,

The night, the river Chhinda, the paddy fields,

The sky and the earth

Get absorbed in a secret love.

 

Who weeps on the river bank

Bent with the years

Of facing the ups and downs of life?

A pitch dark night.

The tame owl’s

Dance of death

Makes the earth shudder.

Fear piles up

On the roads of the city.

Death’s long shadow captures

Its lanes and by-lanes.

On the still waters of the Yamuna

Float corpses of heart-rending shrieks.

 

Who knows

How this night will end.

The sun’s gray face

Will emerge from the forest of dense smoke,

Around a curtain of nightmares.

Nervous eyes will peep,

Bearing no traces

Of life or tenderness.

Their wings flapping loudly,

Countless flocks of vultures

Walk through the heart of the city.

 

This city is full of memories.

This road

That runs from my village to yours,

From the king’s palace

To where his subjects live,

Layers and layers of skin.

 

Old memories—

The sepoy’s harsh voice,

The sound of horse hooves

Shattering the stillness

Of quiet village paths.

Who comes?

Whoever the sepoy takes away

Never returns.

Whoever he ties to his horse

And drags away

Turns into a tale

That takes on

A life of its own.

 

Any animal

That gets caught

Is sacrificed

To be served at the grand feast.

The city has set the forest

On fire today.

Everyone excitedly waits

For the grand feast.

They know not

What happens

When the jungle

Gets burned to ash.

Who knows

What terrible calamity

Waits to strike this place?

 

How can I have the heart

To tell you,

The one you are waiting for

Will never come back,

How can I tell you

Waves of hatred

Have washed your father away?

On a stone

At the end of the street

Dreams lie shattered.

Smiles shatter into splinters,

And feelings of helplessness

Force their way

Into every heart,

Like a cruel winter night.

 

What can one write of today,

What can the idiom of files capture?

Eyes swollen from crying,

A widow’s grief staring out

Of the eyes of a woman

Whose husband is still alive,

The oppressed hearts of orphans,

defeated time —

All this slips through

The net of empty words.

 

All that remains

Includes

One’s hushed voice,

And a few

Government

And non-government reports.

 

Do not let history be written

In the language of files.

May everyone’s tears and grief

Course through the veins,

Till the hand

Turns stone-hard

And smashes

History’s countless cages.