Village of my birth
Water abounds all around during the monsoons
With fish and turtles right upon the roads
Arums and ferns fill
The fields and household yards
In the dry seasons just sand and dust
Pathways here and there
The place of my childhood and youth
Haunted mid-days in the miry pond
When the snakeheads respire
The flippant youthful heart begins to quiver
In the monsoonal brimming brooks
The elengas bite the bait
The dwarf catfish wriggles on the bank
Drifting in the breeze of reminiscence
Never ever shall those days return !
People impede the unruly rivers
The fields remain unreached
To the silty soil
When shall the sand turn green again
The day's sun has remained the same
The night's moon has remained the same
The trees and grasses have departed
The decor of free nature
Has been shattered to its end
The village of my birth is laid barren
Flowers shall surely bloom
What flowers do is bloom
They are blooming
And shall keep on blooming
What creepers do is climb
They are climbing
And shall keep on climbing
People's savage hands
May uproot trees
There too flowers bloom
Even if encaged
Flowers open their petals
To tend flowers
There are the wind rain and soil
Finally to pluck the pretty flowers
We people are there
For only people possess
Hands and hooks
Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua
Biren Gogoi is a contemporary Assamese poet based in Dibrugarh. He has five collections of poems to his credit.
Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.