My Homeland
In pensiveness and in subjectivity,
My mind hovers over the times that were…
When touch down is but an aerial feel,
My soul touches base in matters more than one
Of a childhood spent in games,
Of flowers and seasons in the rain
When running after dragon flies was a pastime too serious
To think of a career was all but tedious…
When running in the fields was akin to life...
Oh such were the joys of childhood alike
Today I have perfumes that smell and allure
But what is it about the smell of the land that
overpoweringly endures-
In times of sadness it gives me hope
That little tinge of HOME as I know, is still within my
scope
No matter where or how far I go,
The touch of my land shall linger within me…
In joys so sweet and memories so fresh
I shall think of a HOME I never left.
In coming back to it, as lovers who never parted be…
Home is the smell of my lover I never left for thee
In corners and nooks I shall discover home again,
In a scratch here or a song sung there, I shall recollect it
all with pain
Of friends and lovers, in loving memory they come all…
As my eyes delight in places that were mine,
I touch and feel and go back in time
When love and life stood still as time
As if for me waiting for a lifetime –
My eyes moist with the song of joy as I touch the land I
never forgot,
Of friends and loved ones, just a whisper away…
Never shall I smell the same again
As I drench myself in my HOMELAND again
As the wheel of my dreams do a touch down on the soil of joy
Years of childhood come back at once
When the mind all at once rings in joy
My land, my land... here I come…
All over and over again.
--Maitreyee B Chowdhury, USA
Tonight
Tonight again, these tiny quiet neem flowers
Your breath is turning white
Your entire body is turning white
And a fragile white virgin night
Is running around your first monsoon tresses
So thick, noiseless – for whom are you waiting like this at
the window?
So blue, quiet – whom are you searching for like this in the
moonlit grass?
For whom are you waiting like this, does he have on his body
the smell of ripe, lush fields
With both hands have you pulled up a laden branch
Are the flowers falling all over your body
On the edge of your breasts and the tresses of the nights?
Are the neem flowers falling
Are you getting drenched
In the crisp festive night?
--Pranjit Bora, Barpeta
Trans: Anuradha Rajkumari Gohain, Delhi
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