The Balance Sheet Left alone I sit Facing myself And open the balance sheet For a reckoning. I take stock of the rainbow dreams Found and lost. The moon loses moonlight And the sky submerges in the ocean. Age advances in ones and tens. Cares and duties Get added as time moves on. Desires decrease As time hurries on. Divider divisible and dividen All get mixed up Resulting in nothingness. Nothing has been multiplied Half done deeds Are in a state of confusion And mistakes. May be I could not learn The sum of life. Or what I learnt was all wrong. The simple arithmetic Or the equations. Is it life That searches for a black cat In a dark room That is not there?
In Search of a Poem's Address I spent all my life in search of an address of a poem Ranging from the fresh green leaves To the tragic strains of the fallen leaves. Poetry speaks in silence all alone. Poetry sows mysterious words In the hearts of men And plays with the moon, the stars and the clouds From the hearts of the hills It brings Sadness locked in the lonely hearts. Poetry steals the songs of the birds and clamoring of animals. From the treasury of forests Uninhabited by man. Poetry makes a home In breathing of each man. It brings hope and sunshine To one who rehearses destruction of life Getting tired swimming in the river of sorrows. Poetry sprouts up From the warm heart of the poet and thrives. Poetry is a carpet Of selected words of emotion Of love and dejection It peeps into the saddened hearts And changes clothes. Sometimes it wears all black And at other times it wears Flamboyant garments of light. Poetry builds a golden bridge From one man's heart to another.
Translated by Ananda Bormudoi
Hemaprova Moran is an Assamese poet and writer based in Kakopathar, Tinsukia.