Poems

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...