SHASWATA  GANGOPADHYAY

A ballad on estrangement

You're not easily available ,for me very tough to meet you

On the Nilgiri mountain, Kurinji flowers blooming

in autumn, every twelve years gap,

you resemble the very identical species

You've bloomed once again during this season, all over the valley

those suffering from leprosy, assemble there and believe that

they'll be cured if they paste grinding petals of

a rare species like you, on their wounds

all their old maladies'll be gone for good.

Following the equator, I've also come here

we are belonging to the same planet, but rarely meeting each other

I'll climb to search you, using the worn-out staircase through mist

will lie down tiringly on the notch of a stone, you just cast off upon

my body, open your petals from head to the fingers of your two legs

let the storm dash out, if you put your lips on my lips

You're the sanatorium to me, the secret panacea

During the night of Insomnia

Sleep is such a mythical creature who before being extinct

has left upon my eye-lids the shadow of its last descendant.

It only lashes its tail restlessly during whole night,

dry dust flies with the strokes of its prickles, fibres fall of

I shut my eyes,try to visualise a silent temple made of white marbles,

situated at far off sea,- whose every bit of tenderness and grace

has polished its floor and walls.

Imaginatively upon those smooth walls I touch my cheek,

lie down on the cold floor of the temple,

turn my body on the other side in fanciful wet wind

Still I can't fold my two eyes

Have the watery vapours of my eyes gone dry?

I' am afraid, is it then called : Dry retina syndrome?

Even now finny fishes play round and round my deep eyes,

the dreams do not bend to search them out

Only night,after finishing its run,

brings the shinning sun back.

As if a Negro athlete after winning the race is returning

with the gold medal in his hands