Two Poems By Cheniram Gogoi

The Man in the Fallow Land

What is life
A distance—a stone’s throw away

Fish caught after draining out water
And eaten with rice of fresh harvest

Happy is the man whose days pass and clothes tear out

He talks and sings in sorrow

If there is food, he is hungry
If food is not found, he is not hungry either.

Once you were in a sylvan habitat
Once you were a poet of the bawdiness

Today you are a farmer to till fallow land as hard as rock in April

May finds Ahu stalks ripening in the sun

You love yourself
Each poor of the world is your son and grandson
You hate yourself
You are now ruled by an unforgivable pain

You have no suffering
You have no irony of fate

What is life
A distance—a stone’s throw away

Food for hunger
A word in loneliness

And yet it is dumb.

I am the Shadow of a Tree

The April Sun is blazing and scorching in my front yard
Beneath the trees are the shades

Days have gone
All my friend and brothers and children who loved their land
Left me alone in search of their land
I am the shade of a tree.

Translated by Ananda Bormudoi

Cheniram Gogoi is an Assamese poet based in Dibrugarh, Assam. He has two collections of poems to his credit.

Click here to read the original Assamese poems.

One thought on “Two Poems By Cheniram Gogoi

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *