Issue: Vol. V, No. 1, May-July, 2026
Disangmukh
In the confluence
Of the Brahmaputra and the Disang
Bhupen Hazarika’s cremains keep calling out
Covering a prejudiced sky
In your laptop
Far away at Guwahati
The silk-cotton flowers were abloom
Yet just moments before
We passed across countless silk-cotton blooms
The coloured clods
Were clung
Onto the silty soil
Disangmukh today
Remains hanging
To a single point of time
We can’t say it’s inspiring
Nor can we be sure
That it weighs down our hearts
Perhaps someday
Disangmukh shall lie
Toppled down
In our dreams
Silk-cotton vultures
Without any live location
Prakalpa Ranjan and I
Reached Disangmukh
The silk-cotton blooms
Had reddened up the sky
We were just about to fill
The bags of our minds
As much as possible
With silk-cotton flowers
From within us
Two vultures
Sprang up
Perhaps so long
They’d been hiding
Among the silk-cotton trees
Life
Made up by the blending
Of red and black
Is slowly
Fading away
Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua
An accomplished Assamese poet-critic and translator M Kamaluddin Ahmed (born 1966) is a University Professor. His poems have been included in collections published by Harper Collins and Penguin.
Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.