Two Poems by Rita Barua

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.

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