Circle
Sailabala Mahapatra
It's the moment to unfold.
Now the moment to unfold
From suffocation
From the sky,from the jungle.
I turn an aimless ship
In which loneliness,I do not know
And then dear eternity!
Your smile turns me into a
green harbour.
I, a divided being of sad feelings,
Search the path of liberty in you
Yashodhara!
Should I be in each birth and rebirth
Remain so helpless a being in decadence,
And full with sorrow should I forever
Unfold to your jungle-cave
And again expand to the earth
In the Omkar of creation...
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(Translated from Odia by Manas Raanjan Mahapatra)
Painting
SailabalaMahapatra
Who can tell me
When shall fall a branch of tree
Shedding all the leaves
When shall the bird return
Now the sky is filled
With melodious voices.
Who can tell me
When shall the earth's heart sink
in sorrowful revelations!
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(Translated from Odia by Manas Ranjan Mahapatra)
Life Beyond
ArunavBarua
There shines a solitary star
Save itself, it knows no other,
A great mud ball where life has evolved
Algebra and grammar, it has chosen to solve,
A strange specie, by the name human they go
Stranger beings have yet to make their presence show,
They create and then destroy their own,
The planet is preparing to silently disown...
This specie fears itself the most,
The only who find that they kill to boast
They have things they call weapons
That could send every life form to the heavens!
They have a side though, that works for them,
They have capacity to love like none before him...
They tell stories to while away time
They even have clocks to measure every chime!
They question, they answer, they are a curios lot,
Without them though, this planet would have been just a dot...
None before them could read the heavens
They do make enemies, yet they also have friends!
Wonder what would have been if not their kind
The only loss is that they are sometimes unkind...
The Earthen Lamp
ArunavBarua
The lamp shines on the pitch dark nights,
Elephant herds pass by with leisurely ease
Every time the elephants seem rogue
The villagers light a lamp to ward them off
Strangely enough, the herd does no harm,
The lamp does other wonders too
Every night when hunger comes a-calling,
And food does not suffice for the hungry
It is with a lamp that hunger is abated,
When the mornings beckon the day
A lamp is lighted after the morning bath,
When fear makes its presence felt,
It is the lamp again which gives succour.
Here, in our villages the lamp takes on a status divine,
Here, it is the sign of aplenty even in want
The earthen lamp is an offering made
To the one above...
If stories of the lamp be told,
It would be a ceaseless exercise
Let me go now, the rains need be called,
Let me light the earthen lamp
Call upon the powers that be
To let it rain...