Looking for Poetry
Sometimes I look for poetry and can't find it.
I go out and see a lame man walking down the road.
I had seen him before.
An old car is parked on the road, dirty with dust.
I had seen it before, but never noticed it.
I'm looking for poetry but I can't find it.
I saw the rickshaw I always see waiting on the side of the road in the morning.
The rickshaw driver is missing.
I've seen it before. I saw it today.
I have been looking for poetry and have not found it.
The bright red sun is rising in the eastern sky,
And the morning walkers are walking.
They don't have time to look at the sun.
I'm looking at the sun. I've watched it before.
The crows suddenly flew away from the trees.
They used to sit on tree branches and would caw when they flew.
A slab of sidewalk had collapsed. It still remains unattended.
I almost fell there one day while walking distracted.
I still remember the incident.
Where it was yesterday is still the same today.
Now when I come looking for poetry, everything is different.
..................
Translated by the Poet Himself
Rain in the City
Torrential rain
Would it sweep away
The city's blunders
The wrath asphyxiating in the waters?
But those asphyxiating as water-ants—
Would their miseries too be swept away
Or would they remain both in land and water
As amphibians!
Whose fault is it?
The citizens' or the town-planners'
Or the apathy of all?
Those who are afloat on the waters
Have turned dumb
After raising their voices time and again.
On the electronic screen
Narratives of fickle images
Are momentary mockeries
On their broken bones.
Here the rains sing
No soothing song.
They only beat the drums of derision
At the blunders of the multitude.
..................
Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua
Harekrishna Deka is a Sahitya Akademi award winner poet, short story writer and literary critic of India who writes in Assamese.
Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.