two poems
Komal Asawari
Komol Asawari permeates the morning
Another Chaitanya sets out
O has your sleep broken
A terrible dream
The Komal Rishav permeates the morning
Another Chitanya floats down the sea
O the fierce sea
Perception is swept away in fragments
Tenderness permeates the morning
In sleep in torpor
Another Buddha becomes a tree
An old man is found dead on the pavement
Approaching that real thing
Concrete or abstract
The fantasy of a dream on sharp perception
Dialectical opposite
Permeate the morning
Translated from Bengali by Amlan Dasgupta
(Komol Asawari is the morning raga of India. Chaitanya-Vhaishnava 15th century saint of Bengal, spread the message of non-violence and love)
Reading: Indian Saga
The gaping flaming mouth of cosmic time
Floats again and again
What will disappear into it?
The peace of the earth and the sky!
With the radiance of a thousand suns
Evolution flares up, belief burns
Barriers mount upon the Vindhya vertically
Many kneeling Agasthyas stand halted
The inertia of the immobile one seeps into us
Apathy and unconcern harden into columns.
Translated by E.V. Ramakrishnan
