The Sun Sets as Scheduled Life is confined By an invisible lock On a nonexistent room The wind carries viruses Inflation is unchecked The face is masked. How can I tell you I am fine? Today I wish someone Speedy recovery Tomorrow I shall pray For his departed soul. Breath itself is struggling I can hear breathes Ending in a moment. I fail to keep my hand On a hand of someone I have failed to talk. The sun sets as scheduled How can I say I am fine?
The Sun that doesnot Set The water flowing along Charikoriya Was hardly illuminated. He found a path from Luit To the sea in the trembling light of the lantern His father lighted. Travelling along that path We meet Socrates, Somerset Maugham, Francis Bacon, Paul Johnson and Jean Paul Sartre And sit for a conversation. I discover myself in the poems of Frost. I walk along the dark alley Branching out from the road And become green as the summer forest. I look at the rainbow When the storm is over And being a yellow bird fly into the cropland To peck at the paddy. He travelled along that path. Charikoriya river was hardly illuminated. Yet he blossomed forth On the bank of the river And now the sun does not set.
Translated by Ananda Bormudoi
Click here to read the original Assamese poems
Rita Barua is an Assamese poet based in Guwahati. She has six collections poems to her credit.