By Ananda Bormudoi
I saw my first crop of poems Beating wings I knew they would be able To fend for themselves. I said: Try flying in the sky And pressing on your wings return home. Don’t say the way home is unknown You’re born out of none but their wombs. Poems of the poor people Having grown up crawling in their yards Having stood up wobbling in their porch Your first babblings with their sorrows. But then, the poems—it seems—don't find out the way To their hearts. The way to the hearts of the poor, People say, is only through their stomach And what a fire in their stomach!! The winged words of mine Get burnt down in the fire Cannot find out ways and doors to the heart.
Translated by Uttam Duorah
Dr Ananda Bormudoi, Editor-in-Chief of Poetry without Fear, is a renowned critic and translator of Assam, India.
Uttam Duorah, the translator, retired as the HoD, English, Women’s College, Tinsukia and is based in Tinsukia, Assam.